THE FIRST SNOW-STORM
Farewell, walks to Rivoli! Here is the beautiful friend of the boys! Here is the first snow! Ever since yesterday evening it has been falling in thick flakes as large as gillyflowers. It was a pleasure this morning at school to see it beat against the panes and pile up on the window-sills; even the master watched it, and rubbed his hands; and all were glad, when they thought of making snowballs, and of the ice which will come later, and of the hearth at home. Stardi, entirely absorbed in his lessons, and with his fists pressed to his temples, was the only one who paid no attention to it.
What beauty! What a celebration there was when we left school! All danced down the streets, shouting and tossing their arms, catching up handfuls of snow, and dashing about in it, like poodles in water. The umbrellas of the parents, who were waiting outside, were all white; the policeman's helmet was white; all our satchels were white in a few moments. Every one appeared to be beside himself with joy—even Precossi, the son of the blacksmith, that pale boy who never laughs,. And Robetti, the lad who saved the little child from the omnibus, poor fellow! jumped about on his crutches. The Calabrian, who had never touched snow, made himself a little ball of it, and began to eat it, as though it had been a peach. Crossi, the son of the vegetable-vendor, filled his satchel with it. And Muratorino made us burst with laughter, when my father invited him to come to our house to-morrow. He had his mouth full of snow, and, not daring either to spit it out or to swallow it, he stood there choking and staring at us, and made no answer. Even the schoolmistress came out of school on a run, laughing; but my mistress of the upper first, poor little thing! ran through the drizzling snow, covering her face with her green veil, and coughing. Meanwhile, hundreds of girls from the neighboring schoolhouse passed by, screaming and frolicking on that white carpet, And the masters and the beadles and the policemen shouted, “Home! home!” swallowing flakes of snow, and whitening their moustaches and beards. But they, too, laughed at this wild romp of the scholars, as they celebrated the winter.
You hail the arrival of winter; but there are boys who have neither clothes nor shoes nor fire. There are thousands of them, who descend to their villages, over a long road, carrying in hands bleeding from chilblains a bit of wood to warm the schoolroom. There are hundreds of schools almost buried in the snow, bare and dismal as caves, where the boys suffocate with smoke or chatter their teeth with cold as they gaze in terror at the white flakes which descend unceasingly, which pile up constantly on their distant cabins threatened by avalanches. You rejoice in the winter, boys. Think of the thousands of creatures to whom winter brings misery and death.