12. Picciola

One spring day an Italian prisoner, shut up wrongfully by Napoleon in one of the dreadful dungeons of France, was permitted to walk in the prison-yard. Looking down he saw a little mound of earth between two of the stones in the pavement, and a tiny green leaf was pushing its way up out of the ground. He was just about to crush it with his foot when he noticed a soft coating over the leaf. “This coating is to keep it safe,” he said; “I must not hurt it!” So he went on with his walk. The next day he saw that instead of one little green leaf, there were two leaves, and the plant was stronger. Every morning after that he looked to see how the little plant had grown. He called it “Picciola,” which means “the little one”; and it grew larger and more beautiful. He made some ink from soot and water in order to write down the story of this little flower, which soon had thirty beautiful blossoms on its stem. But one morning he was in great grief, for he saw his flower beginning to droop. He gave it water, but the stones of the prison-yard prevented its growing. He begged the jailer to let him remove one of the stones to save the life of his little flower; but the prison rules were strict, and no stone could be removed. A new thought came to the prisoner. He would send his little story of the flower to Napoleon, the emperor, and ask him to save his plant. A little girl carried the message to him, and at last the good news came that the stones of the prison-yard could be removed so that Picciola might live. Hearing the story, Josephine, the kind-hearted wife of the emperor, said, “No good can come in keeping such a good man in prison.” So he was set free, but he never forgot that he owed his liberty not only to Josephine, but also to his little friend, Picciola.