CHAPTER 7

Geppetto returns home and gives

his own breakfast to the Marionette





The poor Marionette, who was still half asleep, had not

yet found out that his two feet were burned and gone. As

soon as he heard his Father's voice, he jumped up from his

seat to open the door, but, as he did so, he staggered and

fell headlong to the floor.



In falling, he made as much noise as a sack of wood

falling from the fifth story of a house.



"Open the door for me!" Geppetto shouted from the street.



"Father, dear Father, I can't," answered the Marionette

in despair, crying and rolling on the floor.



"Why can't you?"



"Because someone has eaten my feet."



"And who has eaten them?"



"The cat," answered Pinocchio, seeing that little animal

busily playing with some shavings in the corner of the room.



"Open! I say," repeated Geppetto, "or I'll give you a

sound whipping when I get in."



"Father, believe me, I can't stand up. Oh, dear!

Oh, dear! I shall have to walk on my knees all my life."



Geppetto, thinking that all these tears and cries were

only other pranks of the Marionette, climbed up the side

of the house and went in through the window.



At first he was very angry, but on seeing Pinocchio

stretched out on the floor and really without feet, he felt

very sad and sorrowful. Picking him up from the floor, he

fondled and caressed him, talking to him while the tears

ran down his cheeks:



"My little Pinocchio, my dear little Pinocchio!

How did you burn your feet?"



"I don't know, Father, but believe me, the night has

been a terrible one and I shall remember it as long as I live.

The thunder was so noisy and the lightning so bright--

and I was hungry. And then the Talking Cricket said to

me, `You deserve it; you were bad;' and I said to him,

`Careful, Cricket;' and he said to me, `You are a Marionette

and you have a wooden head;' and I threw the hammer at

him and killed him. It was his own fault, for I didn't want

to kill him. And I put the pan on the coals, but the Chick

flew away and said, `I'll see you again! Remember me to

the family.' And my hunger grew, and I went out, and the

old man with a nightcap looked out of the window and

threw water on me, and I came home and put my feet on

the stove to dry them because I was still hungry, and I fell

asleep and now my feet are gone but my hunger isn't!

Oh!--Oh!--Oh!" And poor Pinocchio began to scream

and cry so loudly that he could be heard for miles around.



Geppetto, who had understood nothing of all that

jumbled talk, except that the Marionette was hungry, felt sorry

for him, and pulling three pears out of his pocket, offered

them to him, saying:



"These three pears were for my breakfast, but I give

them to you gladly. Eat them and stop weeping."



"If you want me to eat them, please peel them for me."



"Peel them?" asked Geppetto, very much surprised. "I

should never have thought, dear boy of mine, that you

were so dainty and fussy about your food. Bad, very bad!

In this world, even as children, we must accustom ourselves

to eat of everything, for we never know what life may

hold in store for us!"



"You may be right," answered Pinocchio, "but I will not

eat the pears if they are not peeled. I don't like them."



And good old Geppetto took out a knife, peeled the

three pears, and put the skins in a row on the table.



Pinocchio ate one pear in a twinkling and started to

throw the core away, but Geppetto held his arm.



"Oh, no, don't throw it away! Everything in this world

may be of some use!"



"But the core I will not eat!" cried Pinocchio in an angry tone.



"Who knows?" repeated Geppetto calmly.



And later the three cores were placed on the table next

to the skins.



Pinocchio had eaten the three pears, or rather devoured them.

Then he yawned deeply, and wailed:



"I'm still hungry."



"But I have no more to give you."



"Really, nothing--nothing?"



"I have only these three cores and these skins."



"Very well, then," said Pinocchio, "if there is nothing

else I'll eat them."



At first he made a wry face, but, one after another, the

skins and the cores disappeared.



"Ah! Now I feel fine!" he said after eating the last one.



"You see," observed Geppetto, "that I was right when

I told you that one must not be too fussy and too dainty

about food. My dear, we never know what life may have

in store for us!"

****

Top of Page

< BACK    NEXT >

| Home | Reading Room | The Adventures of Pinocchio