her father and mother and the boy and the ass, to pick the beans, and they all came together to sleep at the farm for two or three days during the picking.
In this way Jeli saw the girl morning and evening, and they would sit together on the wall of the sheep-fold and talk, while the boy looked after the sheep.
"It seems as if I were at Tebidi again," said Mara, "when we were little things, and used to stand on the foot bridge.
Jeli also remembered everything, though he said little, being always a judicious youth, and of few words.
When the harvest was over, and the eve of parting had come, Mara went out to talk with the young man, just as he was making "ricotto cheese," and he was wholly intent in skimming the whey with his ladle:
"Now I'll say addio," said she, "for to morrow we return to Vizzini."
"How have the beans gone?"
"Bad! la lupa[1] has eaten them all this year."
- ↑ A parasitic disease.
