“Do you feel so sorry for a little donkey that has cost you nothing?” said the Farmer.  “What should I do—­I, who have paid my good money for him?”

“But, you see, he was my friend.”

“Your friend?”

“A classmate of mine.”

“What,” shouted Farmer John, bursting out laughing.  “What!  You had donkeys in your school?  How you must have studied!”

The Marionette, ashamed and hurt by those words, did not answer, but taking his glass of milk returned to his father.

From that day on, for more than five months, Pinocchio got up every morning just as dawn was breaking and went to the farm to draw water.  And every day he was given a glass of warm milk for his poor old father, who grew stronger and better day by day.  But he was not satisfied with this.  He learned to make baskets of reeds and sold them.  With the money he received, he and his father were able to keep from starving.

Among other things, he built a rolling chair, strong and comfortable, to take his old father out for an airing on bright, sunny days.

In the evening the Marionette studied by lamplight.  With some of the money he had earned, he bought himself a secondhand volume that had a few pages missing, and with that he learned to read in a very short time.  As far as writing was concerned, he used a long stick at one end of which he had whittled a long, fine point.  Ink he had none, so he used the juice of blackberries or cherries.  Little by little his diligence was rewarded.  He succeeded, not only in his studies, but also in his work, and a day came when he put enough money together to keep his old father comfortable and happy.  Besides this, he was able to save the great amount of fifty pennies.  With it he wanted to buy himself a new suit.

One day he said to his father: 

“I am going to the market place to buy myself a coat, a cap, and a pair of shoes.  When I come back I’ll be so dressed up, you will think I am a rich man.”

He ran out of the house and up the road to the village, laughing and singing.  Suddenly he heard his name called, and looking around to see whence the voice came, he noticed a large snail crawling out of some bushes.

“Don’t you recognize me?” said the Snail.

“Yes and no.”

“Do you remember the Snail that lived with the Fairy with Azure Hair?  Do you not remember how she opened the door for you one night and gave you something to eat?”

“I remember everything,” cried Pinocchio.  “Answer me quickly, pretty Snail, where have you left my Fairy?  What is she doing?  Has she forgiven me?  Does she remember me?  Does she still love me?  Is she very far away from here?  May I see her?”

At all these questions, tumbling out one after another, the Snail answered, calm as ever: 

“My dear Pinocchio, the Fairy is lying ill in a hospital.”

“In a hospital?”

“Yes, indeed.  She has been stricken with trouble and illness, and she hasn’t a penny left with which to buy a bite of bread.”