“Good morning, Garibaldi, how are you this morning?” she said as she patted the stocky little neck of her pet.

Garibaldi submitted to her caress with a condescension worthy of the position her name gave her, and the other goats crowded to the open door, eager to leave their cramped quarters.

“Not yet, my dears,” Lucia said softly, “it isn’t time.  Here, Esther, I will milk you first.  You must all be good to-day, and Garibaldi, I don’t want you to go running away if I have to leave you with Beppi,” she continued.  “You’re nothing but goats, of course, but you know perfectly well that we are at war, and that you are very important, and must do your part.  Stop it, Miss, none of your pranks, I’m in a hurry,” she chided the refractory Esther for an attempt at playfulness.

“There now, that’s enough, I can’t carry any more or I would.  Two pails only half full aren’t much, but they help, I guess.  Now if it won’t rain until I get there it will be all right, but I’ll cover the pails to be on the safer side.”  She found two covers and fitted them securely over the pails.  “Now children, good-by.  Be good till I come back, and don’t go making any noise.”

She paused long enough to give Garibaldi a farewell pat and then left the shed closing the door behind her.  She looked up uneasily at the cottage, but everything seemed to be very still, so she picked up her pails and started off at as brisk a pace as possible.

She followed the main road that looked unnaturally white and ghostly in the pale dawn of the early morning.  It was down hill for about a mile, and traveling was comparatively easy at first, but when the road reached the bottom of the valley it stopped and seemed to straggle off into numerous little foot-paths.  The broadest and most traveled looking path Lucia followed, picking her way carefully for fear of stumbling and thus losing some of the precious milk.

The path led up the other side of the valley.  It was a steep climb, and Lucia was tired when she reached the top.  She sat down for a while to rest before going on the remainder of the way.  The next path that she took turned abruptly to the right, and led up an even steeper hill to a tiny plateau above.  From it one could look down on Cellino across the valley.  When Lucia reached it she put down her pails in the shade of a big rock and looked about cautiously.

Nothing seemed to stir.  The guns were quiet and nothing in the peaceful, secluded little spot suggested the close proximity of battle.  The only human touch in sight was a small scrap of paper, held down by a stone on the flat rock above the pails.

Lucia was not surprised, for she had done the same thing every morning for a week now.  She unfolded it.  As she expected, she found four brightly polished copper pennies and the words, “Thanks to the little milk maid,” written in heavy pencil.

Lucia picked up the money and put it into her pocket, then with a pencil that she had brought especially for the purpose she wrote, “You are welcome, my friends; good luck!” below the message, and tucked the paper back under the stone.  Then with another curious look around, which discovered nothing, she started back, this time running as fleet and fast as any of her sure-footed little goats.