The Silent Readers Part 17

You should all begin reading at the same moment. Your teacher will announce before you begin how much time she is going to give you.

She will divide the cla.s.s into three equal groups according to speed and find out which group writes the best answers to the questions at the end of this selection.

I

Pietro Vittori was playing in the shade of an olive grove on a mountain side that overlooked the sea near Naples. Just below him was a white road that stretched away into the distance for many miles. Far below the road the blue water sparkled in the suns.h.i.+ne. It was a beautiful spot. Pietro, who had never been far from the olive grove and the mountain side, supposed that all the world was like it.

As he looked at the road, he saw a little cloud of dust in the distance; soon a motor car moved slowly along the road until it came to a stop. The driver and a man on the seat behind him got out and busied themselves about the car. They looked at the long slope of the road before them and shook their heads.

Drawn by curiosity, Pietro moved nearer and nearer until he stood beside the road. He could see that something was wrong, but he understood no word that the strangers spoke. Suddenly the glance of the man fell on the bright-eyed, barefoot lad, and he asked Pietro a question. His voice was kindly, but Pietro could only shake his head. Then the man laughed and patted Pietro's brown curls. He led the boy to the side of the car, and pointed to a tank beneath the seat of the driver.

This time Pietro understood; he knew that the tank contained the wonderful fluid that made the car go. This car could go no farther because the supply of the wonderful fluid was used up. It was all plain enough, and he knew what he could do to help. His dark eyes shone brightly as he looked up at the man.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SI, SI, SIGNORE!" HE CRIED EAGERLY]

"Si, si, signore!" he cried, eagerly; and in an instant more he was flying up the long slope, until at last he was out of sight round a curve. The driver of the car started to follow him, but soon gave up the attempt, for it was very hot. All the way to the village Pietro ran as fast as his bare feet would carry him--two kilometres or more.

It was nearly an hour before Pietro came hurrying back. With him was the man from the shop in the village, and he bore a filled can in either hand. The travelers were patiently waiting. They could do nothing else, for their only hope lay in Pietro, unless by chance another motor car should come along.

When they were ready to start again, the man patted Pietro's curly head once more, and slipped some bright silver coins into his hand--to the great surprise of Pietro, who had never seen other coins than those made of copper. Then the man leaped to his seat, and the whole party waved their hands to Pietro, and called out gayly to him in their strange language; then the car sped out of sight. Then Pietro hurried up through the olive grove to his little home, where the bright silver coins surprised his parents even more than they had surprised him.

Now that was only a small adventure; but adventures were few in Pietro's life, and so he thought of it often through the weeks and months that followed. A year later, with his parents and his brothers and sisters, he went over the mountains to Naples, and sailed in a great s.h.i.+p across the ocean to Boston; and all that meant so many adventures that he almost forgot his long run over the hot and dusty road to help the strangers.

II

Pietro had lived in the North End of Boston about two years, when he had another adventure. Late one afternoon, toward the end of November, he was walking slowly along the street on his way home from school.

His heart was heavy. At school he had just been learning the story of Thanksgiving, and he had heard much about Thanksgiving celebrations; but he knew that there would be no Thanksgiving dinner in the crowded little rooms where he lived, for the family was large, and his father had long been without work.

As two men pa.s.sed him, one said to the other, "How this part of Boston has changed! I thought I could take you straight to the Old North Church, but I seem to be getting lost."

Pietro sprang to the man's side. "I know the way!" he cried. "Let me show you! And I can tell you all about the church where Paul Revere hung the lanterns."

The two men looked down, and laughed. "That is the way with the little Italian boys; they soon become real Americans," said the one who had spoken first. "We shall be glad to have you guide us," he added to Pietro.

So Pietro proudly walked before them, and led the way, first to the historic church, and then to the old cemetery on Copp's Hill, near by.

All this time the man was watching him curiously. "I think you and I have met before," he said at length. "Do you remember me?"

For the first time Pietro looked long and hard at the man's face. Then he cried out, "Yes, yes! I did not see before! You were the man in the car that stopped on the Amalfi road." He fairly danced for pleasure that the strange man had remembered him so long. Then he hurried on: "See! I can talk with you now! I am an American! I go to school!"

"You see," said the man laughingly, as he turned to his friend, "I can remember the face of a bright Italian boy better than I can the streets of my own city."

Then he told his friend of the help that Pietro had given when the motor car stopped on the Italian mountain side. With a few questions, he drew from Pietro his own story, and he watched the brown-eyed boy closely as they talked.

"Pietro," he said, at last, "I like you, and I want to be your friend.

Keep on in school and study. Come and see me to talk things over once in a while. I'll be able to help you when it is time for you to go to work. In the meantime I can find work for your father." He gave Pietro his address, and checked the words of thanks that came pouring out.

"And this," the man went on, "will give you all a Thanksgiving dinner as a reward for your work as guide this afternoon."

A bill was pressed into Pietro's hand, and the men hurried on. Pietro stood where they left him, and looked first at the bill in his hand, and then at the two men, who turned and waved their hands as they went round a corner.

So it came about that the fortunes of the Vittori family took a sudden change for the better, and there was a happy Thanksgiving dinner in their tenement--all as a result of Pietro's cheerful readiness to be of help three years before, when strangers were in trouble on an Italian mountain side.

--_John Clair Minot.

Courtesy of "The Youth's Companion"._

QUESTIONS

1. Near what city did the first part of this story take place?

2. In what city did the second part occur?

3. What service did Pietro do for the travelers in the first part?

4. What happened to Pietro between the first and second parts of the story?

5. Did Pietro do anything in the second part of the story similar to what he did in the first?

6. Do you think the American gentleman had a good memory?

7. Pietro was very polite and obliging, wasn't he? What two good things did he do for his family by being so?

8. What do you think "_Si, si, signore_" means? Why are these three words printed in italics?

SOME PATRIOTIC MINE WORKERS

You should all begin reading this selection at the same moment.

Can you read it thoroughly in thirty seconds?

Not all the good soldiers in the American army which helped to win the World War were in the trenches, or even in France. And they were not all young men. See if you do not think the following occurrence proves the truth of this statement.

In October, 1918, shortly before the war ended, one hundred and fifty mine workers, who had retired from service after earning enough to support themselves in their old age, returned to the mines at Stoneboro, Pennsylvania, when they learned of the shortage of men during the war. They mined four thousand tons of coal while they waited for the railway siding to be completed to the new opening where they were to work.

--"_Youth's Companion._"

QUESTIONS

Why is it right to call these men patriotic?

Is that kind of patriotism needed only in war time?