going from bad to worse, for we have had to sell the mule, too."
Massaro Cirino had yoked the ass to the plow, together with an old mare which matched it like a stone in a ring, and drew her brave furrow all day long, for miles and miles, from the time the lark began to sing in the clear morning sky, till, with quick and hasty flights, and melancholy chirping, the robin red-breasts ran to hide behind the naked bushes, trembling with cold under the mist that rose like a sea.
Only, as the ass was smaller than the mare, a cushion of hay was put over the saddle under the yoke, and it had hard work to break up the frozen clods, by dint of chafed shoulders.
"It'll help spare the mare, who's getting old," said massaro Cirino. "It's got a heart as broad and big as the Plain of Catania, that Saint Joseph's ass has! and you would not think it!"
And he added, tuming to his wife, who
