Litchfield enquirer., 1880-01-22

It did him much harm aud no good, but It was grand thing, and he liked it. He was fond of the Arno as he was of his country :; neither of them had ever done anything for him, but he was proud of them, nevertheless.
 The people who cling to ideas in this way are very silly, no doubt, yet they are the only people who make life at all noble. One sad day his General died, his great General whom all the wosld honored. Gualdro Soncini made one of the many mournars, as the dark, stately pomp of tkc great military funeral moved through to ancient streets, that had been all baptized with new names but could not be defrauded of their old honor and their old history. Guadro's heart was heavier than be- fore. He missed the kindly smile that an- swered his salute; he missed pointing the great soldier out to strangers and saying proudly, 'EccO il mic Generals-eccolo!"
 A month or two later he saw the Generals horse dragging the heavy, stinking cart of the manure company; of the good people who empty the eesspools of the city and pour name less filth out over the corn-feds by way of decreasing lever and diphtheria
 Gualdro felt knifein his heart.
 And they will give him statue-a hun- dred statues .-and they let his brave horse toll there!', fse said in his pain and his wrath. But then he was a simple man, and did not understand the policies Of great families and vain-glorious nations, which is ito save at the spigot and pour out at the bunghole," as a homely English saw has it. ...
 After that Gualdro felt more lonely. When the floods swamped him, and when the bread pot was empty, things scented harder to bear than before. He had never asked his General for anything, but he had always felt that in any very terrible extremity he might and once the General had called him ''bambno mio' -''bambino mio," and he seventy years old land they had both laughed, and felt that after all they were both soldiers, and so equals: and now all that was over forever forever! And the horse toiled in the manure cart, and the old man felt alone
 Still, there was Drummer, and there was the babies-the little merry brown babies tum- bling about over the old dog and putting their little fists down his red jaws, Drummer had his own occupations, and those were serious ones. He would watch the children when they were asleep, anu snap at the flies and centi- pedes that approached tfiem; he guarded the the linen when it was spread out to dry on the sand by the river and he caught rats, the big abounding rodents that swarm by the Arno, he caught them by the score with sharp, sudden death-bite, and then flung them away as offal however hungry he might be, for Drummer knew that he was intended by na- ture to have higher views touching bulls and bears, and that rats were too poor prey for him, only they worried his master, and fright ened the bed ridden woman and the babies, so he hunted them.
 s'He kills them like Christian l" Gualdro would say, with pride: and the rats were the only creatures that the strong ,good-humored, valiant beast ever injured. Drummer was be- loved by all the Pignone, and was perfectly happy lying by the edge of the river watching f tha nx1I k1.a n0fo ny1I fl,<, nhs women, when his mind was at peace as to rats.
 The fine new times that Gualdro had done his best to bring about worried him as they worried all the populace with fines and con- traventions and all manner of petty legal tor mentings if man did but set his chair oIt on the pavement, or let his dog run about, or cry his goods at wrong hours, or do any other lit tie thing that he had been always used to do before Freedom had been heard of in street corners. Gualdro was a very honest man he had never willingly done any harm or cheated any one; when he could pay for his bit of bread he bought it. when he could not he went without it. Yet he was always being told that he transgressed the law; he was always seeing those iong slips of printed pa- per which break the heart of the poor who nine times out of ten cannot even read them.
 ''If man do his duty as he sees it, and mo- lests nobody, and has to pay his way, ought they to be at him ?" Gualdro would ask in perplexity; he could not understand it.
 "Ay, they'll let youalone then, said ashrew who was another neghbor. "A year ago some brutes they set on my poor man and knlfed and beat him all for nothing, and they got scot free; as for us, there comes the uciere hundred times year, if one forgets to pay centime or sets a hower-pos on sill.'
 They were very perplexed in Pignone, but they were told it was liberty even when some rickety chairs and copper pot or two were raised to the dignity of furniture riches" and sion, when it has had a little .more time to settleNaown into the minds of the people eve- rywhere, will not be comfortable for us. It will very favorable to Nihilisui.
 Gualdro, who was patlen,, Obedient per- son. as soldiers mostly are, was saddened by this usage, not made rebellious.
 One of his babies died, the prettiest; the Doctor said the great public refuse-heap hard by had given it it's mortal ''ball in the throat" as they call diphtheria, but the refuse- heap stank on by municipal permission. On the strip of garden ground by his house a grand jessanine covered the wall; he had planted it, and his landlord let him call it his own and the flowers of it brought few pence they or dered him to cut it away, as it was against the jaw to have shrub hang over the wall. As he delayed to do it, he was fined, and his bush was destroyed. A scoundrel swore debt of twenty francs against him fasely; he could not understand the summons to the court, and oniv called out stupidly through Pignone, Mot a soldo, do 1 owe, not soldo. I never did, that the good saints know" But the saints do not look into law courts, and at the petty tribunal a petty officer gave the yer dict against him, and ordered him to pay ten francs more for contumacy. As he had not the money, the assciere, who represents Fate to the multitude, came and took his copper pots and pans. and the bed that was under his wife. 'Is this just ?" said Gauldro, half be- side hlmself ''It is law !" said the uscievs. Florentines are apatient people; the old sol- dier said nothing more. r
 { If I had owed it l would not have minded" he told his neighbors, and they, poor though they were, contriyed among them to give him another bed Is.ssa ss }sIs
 H"These are the fine. times you fools fought for, Gualdro." the neighbor who was shrew would say, and Gualdro would shake hIs head, and, from habits sake take out his cold pipe. which he could not afford to light
 '.It would come right if we got the repub- lic," said the broom maker.
 But Gualdro shook his head.
 s1 NAY, nay every nuuSF5 StOuldcn III the country then would be gobbling at the public pot. That would never do"
 'sThen what would ?" said the broom maker, tartly. Gualdro could not tell.
 An old soldier at seventy years old cannot solve problems that would have been too tough for Gavour. t& @ s1F ss
 The general result in the Pignone was much as it is everywhere else, to produce sort of conviction that it was of no use trying to be decent and honest the law worries you if you were innocent as much as if you were not.
 It is the triumph of modern Governments to produce that conviction in the populace.
 It was then early in Summer.
 The Summer was the worst time for him, because the strangers were all away and there were one or two foreign ladies for whom Gualdro went errands and did llttle things, with Drummer trotting at his heels but when the vines came in flower the ladies went away, and the Summer was hard to him, most of all, the close of the Summer was hard, because there was nothing to do in the city that lay baking under the sun. and there was still two