Giovanni Verga

“ Why, she does more work for me than a mule would, and has given me more colts than she has hairs on her back. My conscience! I don't know where this colt got its magpie coat. But it is well built, I tell you. Even men aren't judged by their moustaches. Look, what a chest! and what thick, solid legs! See how it holds its ears. An ass that holds its ears up like that can be put in a cart or to a plow as you please, and it will carry four bushels of corn better than a mule, I swear it will—by all the saints. ”

“ But compare Luciano knew that he carried three quintals of merchandise more than a mule, and the load would bring him five tarì a quintal.
"Every day that Saint Joseph's ass lives," said he, "I make fifteen tarì, and his keep costs me less than a mule's would."
Every time the people who happened to be sauntering along behind the cart saw the poor beast, which could hardly put one leg in front of the other, arching its spine and panting heavily, with discouragement clouding its eye, they would say,—
"Block the wheel with a rock, and let that poor creature have a chance to get its breath." ”

“ In winter, when there was little work and the wood for burning the lime was scarce, and to be had only at a distance, and the frozen paths had n't a leaf on their hedges or a mouthful of stubble along by the icy gutters, life was still harder for those poor brutes, and the padrone knew that in winter not half as much was eaten ”

“ And compare Neli, as he got behind the ass to drive it off, said—
"As God exists I robbed him of the colt! The color makes no difference. See what solid legs, compare! That beast is worth forty lire with one's eyes shut." ”

“ Don't you see the sun is set? What is the use of you both holding out any longer?"
And he snatched the halter from the padrone's hand, while, at the same time, compare Neli with an oath took out of his pocket his closed fist clutching the thirty-five lire, and gave them to the man without looking at them as if they took his liver with them. The friend retired to one side with the mistress of the young ass to count over the money on a rock, while the padrone went off to another part of the fair like a colt, cursing and beating himself with his fists. ”

“ When he can't do any more work I shall sell him to the lime dealer; for the beast is good enough for his work. I tell you there's no truth at all in the idea that St, Joseph's asses are vigliacchi. Besides, I got this one of massaro Cirino for a piece of bread, after he was 'poverished."
In this way the Saint Joseph's ass passed into the hands of the lime-dealer, who already possessed a score or more of asses all lean and moribund, which carried his sacks of plaster, and picked up a wretched living by means of the mouthfuls of weeds that they could snatch as they went along the road. ”

“ Boys do not understand some things, and after the young ass was sold to massaro Cirino, of Licodiana, compare Neli's son used to visit it in the stall, and to caress its face and neck, and the ass would turn round its head, and snuff as if it had become attached to him, while, as a general thing, asses are made to be tied wherever their padrone may see fit to tie them, and change their lot as they change their stall. ”

“ And he added, tuming to his wife, who had followed him, wrapped in a mantellina, penuriously scattering the seed,—
"If anything should happen to it—Heaven forefend—we are ruined with the prospects before us." ”

“ The poor woman had a few lire in the knot of her handkerchief, and she let herself be persuaded into it by the lime burner, because it is said that "old things go to destruction in the house of a fool." ”

“ It brought a good crop to compare Neli. But we are unfortunate."
So the Saint Joseph's ass changed masters once more, when massaro Cirino returned from the field with the sickle over his shoulder, it being useless even to try to reap that year, although the images of the saints had been stuck into bamboo sticks all over the ground for protection, and two tarì [3] had been paid to the priest for his blessing.
"It's the devil that we want rather than the saints," said massaro Cirino, irreverently, when he. ”