The little acrobat: a story of Italy

THE July sunshine lay hot and golden over the fields of wheat on the Italian hillsides, and the deep shade of the chestnut woods along the road was more inviting than the white...

NATALE, as will have been discovered by this time, was an Italian circus boy, a cheerful, happy little soul, who loved his “profession”, and whose ambition reached to the giddy...

IT took all of that first day and most of the next to get everything into shape for an exhibition on the second night after the arrival of the circus troop at Cutigliano.

SUDDENLY the small black figure of Natale appeared, kneeling at the horse’s side, although no one had seen him slip in. With his hands clasped in distress, he lifted his voice i...

NATALE held his breath with horror. One hundred francs lost! And he not at hand to hear of it, to help look for the money, among the very first? He could not ask Olga how it had...

NATALE lay flat on the grass, his face hidden on his arms, and his feet rebelliously kicking the ground. The added week granted by the mayor had passed, and the circus-wagon was...

THERE is a short, crooked street in Cutigliano, which leads back of the church and out upon the promenade of San Vito. This street is confined on either hand by stone houses and...

NATALE, too, was looking up, but only dully, as a party of ladies and gentlemen sauntered toward him laughing and talking gayly as they came. Many such groups had passed him alr...

WHEN Natale next opened his eyes he became very wide awake indeed, in an instant. In fact, he did not know that he had been asleep at all, until the moonlight, slanting in, show...

LONG before Natale waked, the day had dawned, but the sun had not long looked down into the valley before he turned stiffly on his grassy couch and rubbed his eyes. Then, howeve...

NATALE sat down in his leisurely fashion on the low wall bounding the road just beyond the town and began daintily nibbling around the crisp, sugared edges of his bread ring. It...

THE small, pale apparition of Natale, suddenly projected into their midst, so startled them all that even Olga forgot to listen for the thud of Il Duca’s heavy body on the groun...