round beside the fire with the monkey beside
him.

"Here we stay a little," he said. "Ugolone lies there like one dead.
The donkeys are tired and so am I. We have come thirty miles from
Florence."

"Ecco!" said Carlotta. "Then there is time for bean soup." She sent
Beppo for more water, and, when the kettle was bubbling on the fire,
called the children to her side. "Tell me," she said, "can you dance?"

"A little," quavered Beppina. "Dance, then," said the woman. Beppina
reluctantly seized her skirts, and, making a dancing-school bow, took a
few dainty steps and tripped over a stone.

Carlotta laughed contemptuously. "Santa Maria!" she said, "you don't
call that dancing!" Then, beckoning to her husband, she cried, "But
they know nothing! They cannot earn their salt! We have made a bad
bargain. Come, then, and we will teach these ignorant ones the
trescone!"

Luigi grunted as he rose unwillingly from his hard couch, tied the
monkey's string about a tree branch, and came forward.

"Watch closely, both of you," said Carlotta to the children. "It is for
you to dance like Tuscans, not like marionettes. Even old Ugolone can
do better."

Once he was roused, Luigi's weariness seemed to vanish. He suddenly
seized Carlotta's hands, and, holding her at arm's length, began to
wheel and jump, to turn and twist in all sorts of curious figures.
Sometimes the dancers' arms were linked above their heads. Sometimes
they shook a lifted foot. Faster and faster they whirled, and the
monkey, inspired by their example, began to leap and bound about at the
end of her string, chattering wildly.

The speed of the dancers slackened like that of a spinning top, and they
came to a sudden standstill. Luigi returned to Carina and his place by
the fire, and Carlotta got out the hand-organ. All the morning she made
the children practice the figures of the dance to music, until they were
ready to drop with fatigue. While she prepared the soup for their noon
meal they were allowed to rest, but immediately afterwards the donkeys
were harnessed again, and to the music of their tinkling bells the
little cavalcade moved on.

For some time they travelled over the steep mountain roads without
seeing a soul; then they met a girl driving a flock of sheep to pasture.
Later they overtook some peasant women walking like queens with great
loads of wood on their heads. Beyond them they passed an ox-team, and
Beppo whispered to Beppina