Compare Tano was in town. He was spending Christmas with his relatives, and he wanted to leave immediately after. The old woman passed Christmas Day with a heavy heart, yet she made an effort, wanting to make it a cheerful one at least for the child. At mealtime she gave him chicken soup and sweets. She herself could not touch food, but she felt full just seeing Nenè eat with so much joy. She washed his entire wardrobe, mended wherever there was a tear, attached buttons where they were missing, and then chose his best clothing, and made him a little bundle. There were his little flannel shirts, new shoes, and little dress suit—the first he had ever owned and that had cost her three loads of laundry….

In the bundle she also placed the dress of Our Lady of Grace, for they said that over there people were without religion, and last of all she added a Christmas whistle so that the child would remember his grandmother so far away. Poor child, who could tell if they would take care of him the way she had. Then, she waited for compare Tano to come and get him. He came on the evening of Saint Stephen, a night that was gray as lead, appearing at the door, bundled up in his black cape with his cloth hat pulled down over his eyes. “Is he ready, comare Lidda?”

Gna’ Lidda handed him the bundle without speaking. She was afraid to open her mouth for fear the words would come tumbling out unchecked. Then she took the child in her arms. “Keep him covered well.” She reached for her new colored shawl that she had never worn and wrapped the child in it so that all that remained showing was his little red face and two lively black eyes, like those of a baby sparrow.

She kissed him on his tiny cheeks, with strong kisses that tasted of tears. But she did not cry. She placed him in the arms of compare Tano, who took him gently because he understood the grandmother’s suffering. Only when she saw the man turn, with the bundle beneath his arm and the child in his cape, did she shout, “Compare Tano, I am entrusting him to you! …”

And she remained there looking on with bony hands in her gray hair, disheveled by the north wind.

For two days she wandered around the empty room without crying, not knowing what to do, praying that God, who had taken everything from her, might now also take her miserable useless life. Then on the third day she took her basket and headed out toward Buscardo. She kept her gaze downward, and it seemed as though she felt Nenè’s little hand in her own. He would still be traveling, and it was so cold. But she had given him her shawl, thank goodness.