Speaker 1: Little Piccola by Nora A. Smith. Piccola lived in Italy,
where the oranges grow, and where all the year the
sun shines warm and bright. I suppose you think Piccola
very strange name for a little girl, but in her
country it was not strange at all, and her mother
thought it the sweetest name a little girl ever had.
Piccola had no kind father, no big brother or sister,
and no sweet baby to play with in love. She
and her mother lived all alone in an old stone
house that looked on a dark, narrow street. They were
very poor, and the mother was away from home almost
every day, washing clothes and scrubbing floors, and working hard
to earn money for her little girl and herself. So
you see, Piccola was alone a great deal of the time.
And if she had not been a very happy, contented
little child, I hardly know what she would have done.
She had no playthings except a heap of stones in
the back yard that she used for building houses, and
a very old, very ragged doll that her mother had
found in the street one day. But there was a
small round hole in the stone wall at the back
of her yard, and her greatest pleasure was to look
through that into her neighbor's garden. When she stood on
a stone and put her eyes close to the hole,
she could see the green grass in the garden, and
smell the sweet flowers, and even hear the water splashing
into the fountain. She had never seen any one walking
in the garden, for it belonged to an old gentleman
who did not care about grass and flowers. One day
in the autumn, her mother told her that the old
gentleman had gone away and had rented his house to
a family of little American children, who who had come
with their sick mother to spend the winter in Italy.
After this, Piccola was never lonely, for all day along
the children ran and played and danced and sang in
the garden. It was several weeks before they saw her
at all, and I am not sure they ever would
have done so. But one day the kitten ran away,
and in chasing her, they came close to the wall
and saw Piccola's black eyes looking through the hole in
the stones. They were a little frightened at first and
did not speak to her. But the next day she
was there again, and rose the oldest girl went up
to the wall and talked to her a little while.
When the children found that she had no one to
play with and was very lonely, they talked to her
every day, and often brought her fruits and candies and
passed them through the hole in the wall. One day
they even pushed the kitten through, but the hole was
hardly large enough for her, and she mewed and scratched
and was very much frightened. After that, the little boy
said he would ask his father if the hole might
not be made larger, and then Piccola could come in
and play with them. The father had found out that
Piccola's mother was a good woman, and that the little
girl herself was sweet and kind, so that he was
very glad to have some of the stones broken away
and an opening maid for Piccola to come in. How
excited she was, and how glad the children were when
she first stepped into the garden. She wore her best dress,
a long, bright colored woolen skirt and a white waist.
Round her neck was a string of beads, and on
her feet were little wooden sandals. It would seem very
strange to us when it not to wear wooden shoes,
but Piccola and her mother had never worn anything else,
and never had any money to buy stockings. Piccola almost
always ran about barefooted like the kittens and the chickens
and the little ducks. What a good time they had
that day, And how glad Piccola's mother was that her
little girl could have such a pleasant, safe place to
play in while she was away at work. By and
by December came, and the little Americans began to talk
about Christmas. One day when Piccola's curly head and bright
eyes came peeping through the hole in the wall, and
they ran to her and helped her in, And as
they did so, they all asked her at once what
she thought she would have for a Christmas present? A
Christmas present, said Piccola, Why what is that? All the
children looked surprised at this, and Rose said, rather great,
dear Piccola, don't you know what Christmas is? Oh? Yes,
Piccola knew. It was the happy day when the baby
Christ was born, And she had been to church on
that day and heard the beautiful singing, and had seen
the picture of the Babe lying in the manger with
cattle and sheep, sleeping round about. Oh, yes, she knew
all that very well, But what was a Christmas present?
Then the children began to laugh and to answer her.
Altogether there was such a clatter of tongues that she
could hear only a few words now and then, such
as chimney, Santa Claus, stockings, reindeer, Christmas Eve, candies, and toys.
Piccola put her hands over her ears and said, oh,
I can't understand one word you tell me Rose. Then
Rose told her all about jolly Santa Claus, with his
red cheeks and white beard and fur coat, and about
his reindeer and sleigh full of toys. Every Christmas Eve,
said Rose, he comes down the chimney and fills the
stockings of all the good children. So Piccola, you hang
up your stocking, and who knows what a beautiful Christmas
present you will find when morning comes. Of course, Piccola
thought this was a delightful plan, and was very pleased
to hear about it. Then all the children told her
of every Christmas Eve they could remember, and of the
presents they had had, so that she went home thinking
of nothing but dolls and hoops and balls and ribbons
and marbles. And wagons and kites. She told her mother
about Santa Claus, and her mother seemed to think that
perhaps he did not know that there was any little
girl in that house, and very likely he would not
come at all. But Piccola felt very sure Santa Claus
would remember her, for her little friends had promised to
send a letter up the chimney to remind him. Christmas
Eve came at last, Piccola's mother hurried home from her work.
They had their little supper of soup and bread, and
soon it was bedtime time to get ready for Santa Claus.
But oh, Piccola remembered then for the first time that
the children had told her she must hang up her stocking,
and she hadn't any, and neither had her mother. How sad,
how sad it was. Now Santa Claus would come and
perhaps be angry because he couldn't find any place to
put the present. The poor little girl stood by the fireplace,
and the big tears began to run down her cheeks.
Just then her mother called to her, hurry, Piccola, come
to bed. What did she do? But she stopped crying
and tried to think, and in a moment she remembered
her wooden shoes and ran off to get one of them.
She put it close to the chimney and said to herself,
surely Santa Claus will know what it's there, for he
will know I haven't any stockings, so I gave him
the shoe instead. Then she went off happily to her
bed and was asleep almost as soon as she had
nestled close to her mother's side. The sun had only
just begun to shine next morning when Piccola awoke. With
one jump, she was out on the floor and running
toward the chimney. The wooden shoe was lying where she
had left it, but you could never never guess what
was in it. Piccola had not meant to wake her mother,
but this surprise was more than any little girl could
bear and yet be quiet. So she danced to the
bed with the shoe in her hand, calling mother, mother, look,
look see the present Santa Claus brought me. Her mother
raised her head and looked into the shoe. Why, Piccola,
she said, A little chimney swallow nestling in your shoe.
What a good Santa Claus to bring you a bird?
Good Santa Claus, dear Santa Claus, cried Piccola, and she
kissed her mother, and kissed the bird, and kissed the shoe,
and even threw kisses up the chimney. She was so happy.
When the birdling was taken out of the shoe, they
found that he did not try to fly, only to
hop around the room, And as they looked closer, they
could see that one of his wings was hurt a little,
but the mother bounded up carefully so that it did
not seem to pain him. And he was so gentle
that he took a drink of water from a cup,
and even ate crumbs and seeds out of Piccola's hands.
She was a proud little girl when she took her
Christmas present to show the children in the garden. They
had had a great many gifts, dolls that could say Mamma, bright,
picture books, trains of cars, toy pianos, but not one
of them playthings was alive like Piccola's birdling. They were
as pleased as she, and Rose hunted about the house
until she found a large wicker cage that belonged to
a blackbird she once had. She gave the cage to Piccola,
and the Swallows seemed to make himself quite at home
in it at once, and sat on the perch, winking
his bright eyes at the children. Rose had saved a
bag of candies for Piccola, And when she went home
at last, with the cage in her dear swallow safely
inside it, I am sure there was not a happier
life little girl in the whole country of Italy. End
of Little Piccola by Nora A. Smith.