love education

Chapter 11 December (1)
brief introduction

businessman
Vanity

First snow
little mason
a snowball

female teachers
injured old man's home

little scribe
perseverance
gratitude
businessman
Thursday the 1th

My father hoped that every holiday I could invite some friends to my house or visit them, so that I could gradually become good friends with everyone.On Sundays I would go for a walk with Vatini, the well-dressed, well-groomed guy who was so jealous of Dross.

It is Garofi who came to my house today. He is tall and thin, with a hooked nose, and his small eyes show sly eyes from time to time, searching everything around him.He always pays attention to every little thing that happens around him. He is the son of a grocer, and his behavior is very strange. He often turns out the copper coins in his pocket and counts them one by one. Those copper coins can roll flexibly on his fingers. Fuck off, he never used a multiplication table for his multiplication either.

He's already started saving money himself, and has an account with his student savings bank.I'm sure he never squandered a penny, and if he dropped a penny under the long table, he'd look for it for a week until he found it.As Dross said, he is obsessed with money like a magpie that keeps foraging, no matter what he finds, he will pick it up, like old pens, used stamps, brooches, candles Head and so on, nothing is spared.

Now, Garofi has been collecting stamps for more than two years. He already has a very large stamp album, which has collected hundreds of stamps from various countries. When he fills up the stamp album, he will sell it. to a bookseller.At the same time, the bookseller gave him exercise books for free, because, with Garofi's recommendation, more children patronized the bookseller's shop.

When he was in school, he often exchanged things with others. He would bring some small gadgets to exchange with others every day, and he had done lottery and barter.Of course, he would also regret certain transactions and wanted to get his things back. If he bought something with two copper coins, he would definitely sell it for four copper coins when he changed hands.He could play coin flips and never lost.He would sell back issues of newspapers to tobacconists, and he had a small blank ledger in which to keep track of every transaction he made, filled with numbers and additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions of various transactions.

At school, he refused to learn anything but mathematics, and if he wanted a medal, it was only for a free ticket to a puppet show.

But I had a lot of fun with him, he made my life a lot of fun, we played the trade market game and weighed on the scales.He knew the exact price of each item, how to weigh it, and made beautiful trumpet-shaped paper pockets, as experienced as a shopkeeper.

He announced to us that as soon as he graduated, he would start his own business, a new type of business of his own invention.He was very happy when I gave him several foreign stamps, and told me exactly how much each one sold to collectors.My father pretended to be reading the newspaper, but at the same time secretly listened to him, which was very distracting.

Garofi's pockets were always bulging and full of trinkets, and he wore a long black cloak that covered his bulging pockets.He always looked thoughtful and absorbed in his business, very much like a businessman.But his chief concern was stamp collecting, and stamps were his fortune, and he talked of them often, as if he could make a fortune out of them.

His little friends often say that he is greedy for money and greedy for profit, and I don't know my own feelings, but I think I like him, he taught me many things, and to me, he is more like a man.Cletti, the lumber merchant's son, said that Garofi would never give up his stamp album to save his mother's life, and my father didn't believe it:
“Before you judge someone, think twice,” he told me. “Just because he has a passion for business doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a good heart.”

Vanity

Monday 5th
Yesterday, I was walking with Vatini and his father along Via Rivari, passing through Via Dorago Rosso, we met Stadi, the guy who used to shake his fist to drive away those who interrupted his studies.He stood in front of the window of a bookstore, staring straight at a map. No one knew how long he had been standing there, because he was a person who could learn on the street.Even when we greeted him, he was never indifferent, what an attentive guy!

Wattini is always well-dressed, if overdone, in red-trimmed Moroccan boots, a sleek blouse embroidered with tiny frogs, a white beaver hat, and Also wears a watch.He walked with his head held high, but his vanity was destined not to be satisfied today.

We walked a long way along Via Rivari, leaving his father far behind, and he walked really slowly.There was no way, Wattini and I had to stop by a stone bench by the roadside and wait for his father.Sitting on the stone bench was a boy, dressed in ordinary clothes. He looked very tired, with his head lowered, as if he was thinking about something.A man, presumably his father, was pacing up and down under a nearby tree, reading a newspaper.We sat down, Wattini sitting between me and the strange boy.Suddenly Wattini thought of how well he was dressed, and wanted the boys around him to envy him, even to envy him.He raised one foot and said to me:

"Did you see my army boots?" He said so that the boy might catch a look at him, but the boy didn't notice him at all.He put his feet down, and showed me his silk embroidered frogs, and squinting at the boy for a moment, he said that he didn't really like them very much, and that he had long wanted to exchange them for silver buttons, But the boy still didn't look at the frogs.

Seeing the boy's indifference, Wattini again began to turn his very handsome white yarmulke with the tip of his forefinger, and the boy, as if on purpose, did not even glance at it.

Wattini was getting impatient, took off his watch, opened the cover, and showed me the hands, but the boy still didn't turn his head.

"Is that a silver-plated watch?" I asked him.

"No," he answered, "it's gold."

"But surely it's not all gold," I said. "There must be some silver."

"Why? It's not like that!" retorted Wattini, who held the watch up to the boy's eyes so that the boy could see it, and asked him:

"Tell me, is this watch made of pure gold?" the boy replied indifferently, "I don't know."

"Oh, oh," exclaimed Vatini, terribly agitated,

"What an arrogant man!" When he said this, his father stepped forward, and after hearing what his son said, he looked at the boy carefully for a while, and suddenly said sharply to his son :
"Shut up!"

He bent down and whispered in his son's ear, "He's blind!"

Vatini jumped up suddenly, trembling slightly, staring straight at the boy's face. The boy's eyeballs looked like glass, dull and motionless.Vatini stood there blankly, looking very humble, without saying a word, just staring at the ground.Finally, he stammered and said:

"Yes, I'm sorry, I...don't know." The blind little boy seemed to understand the whole thing, with a friendly and joyful smile on his face.

"Oh, it's all right!" Alas, it was useless for him to say that. Vatini was so ashamed that we didn't see a smile on his face on the way back.

First snow
Saturday 10th

Bye now!A walking tour on the Rivari road.Because here comes the boys naughty pals - the first snow of the year!Since yesterday evening, it has been snowing, and the snowflakes are as big as carnations.

Going to school today was a lot of fun. Watching snowflakes hit the window glass and pile up a thick layer of snow on the window sill was really fun. Even the head teacher rubbed his hands enthusiastically, unable to bear it. Just look at the flying snowflakes.

Every time we think that we can build snowmen again, admire the crystal clear ice flowers, and surround ourselves with a warm fire at home, everyone is filled with uncontrollable excitement.But Stadi was still engrossed in his homework, without any distraction, his fists were firmly on his temples, and he was the only one in the class who was not distracted by the snowflakes dancing outside the window.

What a scene we saw when we left school!As if celebrating some grand festival, everyone jumped, jumped, shouted excitedly, stretched out their arms, grabbed a handful of snow, and threw it at another person, who He immediately became a lagging dog.

The children's parents were waiting outside the school gate. They were holding umbrellas. Those umbrella covers were already white. Even the police helmets were white, and the children's schoolbags were quickly destroyed. The snowflakes were dyed a piece of silvery white.The God of Joy seems to have bestowed gifts on everyone at this moment, and we all felt that favor.

Even Pricus, the blacksmith's son, who was pale and never smiled, was very happy today; and the boy from Calabria, seeing snow for the first time in his life, made himself a little snowball in the palm of his hand, and began to bite it as if it were a peach. Cross, the son of the vegetable peddler, stuffed his whole bag full of snow; when my father came to pick me up, he invited the little mason to come to our house tomorrow, and his mouth was full of snow, and he dared not He spit it out but didn't dare to swallow it, so he just stood there blankly looking at us, couldn't stand it anymore, couldn't even utter a word, everyone laughed out loud when they saw him.

Even the principal came out of the school trotting all the way, smiling while running; my class teacher in the second grade, the thin, petite female teacher, wearing a green veil, was also running in the misty snowflakes. While coughing.At the same time, hundreds of female students poured out from the adjacent school. When they passed by, they screamed endlessly, and some of them were still lying on the snow-white carpet, licking it with their small tongues.The teacher in charge, the inspecting teacher, and the policemen were busy maintaining order, and they kept yelling, "Go home, go home!" The snowflakes were all swallowed by them, and those snowflakes were also eaten by them. Whitening their beards, they laughed themselves as they watched the children go wild and romp about the first snow.

Although you are cheering for the arrival of winter, there are still tens of thousands of children in the world who have neither clothes nor shoes to wear in winter, and they don’t even have a stove to rely on. They are thousands of miles away. In each village.They all had chilblains on their hands and started to bleed, but they had to bring firewood into the classroom for warmth.

Thousands of schools may have been surrounded by snow at this time, and those schools were dilapidated with almost no shelter, naked and gloomy exposed to the cold air, like caves.And in that cavernous classroom, some children might be choking with soot, or their teeth chattering with cold, their eyes staring in horror at the ever-falling white snowflakes that never stop The ground floated down from the air and landed on the simple roofs. Under the weight of the snow, those houses would collapse at any time.

You are so happy in winter, but, children, think about it, there are thousands of creatures in the world who will face the test of miserable life in winter, and even the threat of death.

your father
little mason
Saturday 11th

The little mason came to our house today. He was wrapped in a hunting suit, which should be left over from his father's clothes. There were traces of white lime and plaster on the clothes. For his arrival, my father Seems happier than me.

Yes, he brought us so much joy.

No sooner had he entered than he tore off his old, snow-soaked cap, and stuffed it into his pocket.He entered the room slowly, like a tired laborer.He kept turning his head, looking here and there, and I could see his apple-like red face and his small spherical nose.

(End of this chapter)