orasmuch as the good St. Francis had bidden his sons to "Go, beg your
bread from door to door," Fra Giovanni was one day sent to a certain
city. Having passed the Gate, he went up and down the streets to beg his
bread from door to door, according to the rule of the Order, for the
love of God.

But the folk of that city were more covetous than the men of Lucca, and
harder than they of Perugia. The bakers and tanners who were dicing
before their shop-doors, repulsed the poor man of Jesus Christ with
harsh words. Even the young women, holding their new-born babes in their
arms, turned their faces from him. And when the good Brother, whose joy
was in dishonour, smiled at the refusals and insults he received,

"He is laughing at us," said the townsmen to each other. "He is a born
fool--or say rather a vagabond impostor and a drunkard. He has
over-drunk himself with wine. It were a sin and a shame to give him so
much as a crumb of bread from our hutch."

And the good Brother answered:

"You say true, my friends; I am not worthy to stir your pity, nor fit to
share the food of your dogs and your pigs."

The children, who were just then coming out of school, overheard what
was said, and ran after the holy man shouting:

"Madman! Madman!"--and pelted him with mud and stones.

Then Fra Giovanni went forth into the country. The city was built on the
slope of a hill, and was surrounded by vineyards and oliveyards. He
descended the hill by a hollow way, and seeing on either side the grapes
of the vines that hung down from the branches of the elms, he stretched
out his arm and blessed the clusters. Likewise he blessed the olive and
the mulberry trees and all the wheat of the lowlands.

Meantime he was both hungry and thirsty; and he took delight in thirst
and hunger.

At the end of a cross-road, he saw a wood of laurels; and it was the
habit of the Begging Friars to go and pray in the woods, amongst the
poor animals cruel men hunt and harry. Accordingly Fra Giovanni entered
the wood, and fared on by the side of a brook that ran clear and
singing on its way.

Presently he saw a flat stone beside the brook, and at the same moment a
young man of a wondrous beauty, clad in a white robe, laid a loaf of
bread on the stone, and disappeared.

And Fra Giovanni knelt down and prayed, saying:

"O God, how good art Thou, to send Thy poor man bread by the hand of one
of Thy Angels; O blessed poverty! O very glorious and most sumptuou