"I picked them up
yesterday at a wedding, to give them to a poor little girl who was ill.
But she was dead when I got there, so you may have them."
The lads took the stuff thankfully and crunched the stony balls with
white, wolfish teeth.
With Padre Michele's help they got an old woman from amongst the
neighbours to rouse herself and do what was necessary. When all was over
she took the brown blanket as payment without asking for it, smuggling
it out of the mean room under her great black handkerchief. But it was
day then, and Don Pietro Casale was wide awake. He stopped her in the
narrow part of the lane at the foot of his own staircase, and forcibly
undid the bundle, to the old woman's inexpressible discomfiture. He said
nothing, as he took it from her and carried it away, but his thin grey
lips smiled quietly. The old woman shook her fist at him behind his
back and cursed his dead under her breath. From Rome to Palermo, swear
at a man if you please, call him by bad names, and he will laugh at you.
But curse his dead relations or their souls, and you had better keep
beyond the reach of his knife, or of his hands if he have no weapon.
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