Living Age Volume 251 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 Excerpt: ...and careers wildly down the street, a cartload of shouting, exultant blue pinafores behind him. The aged, wrinkled grandmother who sells the canzone, presumably in charge of all the community whilst the parents are at work, looks out of her doorway to admonish them, but very mildly, and she smiles at little Guido with his name embroidered in red letters on his black pinafore who is playing in the gutter. She smiles also indulgently at the farexticri who are showing such surprising interest in the ordinary and trivial amusements of her young charges. But Guido has caught the sound of military music far away in the great world, and is clattering up the street as fast as his little legs can carry him. If he charges into the interloping strangers that is their fault, they can have no possible business in the street, but he bestows upon their injured persons a discreet and charming smile as he gallops on his way. Almost, but not quite, for he stands in wholesome awe of his own contemporaries, he collides with a row of little girls, who arm in arm are dancing down to meet him, their backs indifferently turned to that gay scene towards which he is flying. They are not above a coquettish glance at the strangers as they toss their curls out of their eyes and chant their quaint little song of the city which yet seems to have a refrain of La Bella Napola. Presently the row breaks, the little girls group themselves in a circle round a toddling boy they have captured, and as they slowly revolve begin to sing what is obviously the equivalent of "A ring a ring of roses" as danced and sung in approved fashion in an English nursery. The tune is certainly the same, but the words are addressed to "Maria Giulia," though whether this refers to the baby In th...