Read and listen to the story by Gianni Rodari: “The Well of Cascina Piana”

Hello friends of Eugenio.

Today I will read you the story “Gianni Rodari‘s Il pozzo di Cascina Piana” (The Well of Cascina Piana).

Giovanni Francesco Rodari, detto Gianni[1] (pronuncia Rodàri, /roˈdari/; Omegna, 23 ottobre 1920 – Roma, 14 aprile 1980), è stato uno scrittore, pedagogista, giornalista e poeta italiano. È l’unico scrittore italiano ad aver vinto il Premio Hans Christian Andersen (1970). (leggi ancora)

Let’s listen together

Let’s read together

Halfway between Saronno and Legnano, on the edge of a large woods, was Cascina Piana, which comprised three courtyards in total. Eleven families lived there.
At Cascina Piana there was only one well for drawing water, and it was a strange well, because the pulley for winding the rope was there, but neither rope nor chain was.

Each of the eleven families kept a rope hanging next to the bucket at home, and whoever went to draw water would unhook it, wrap it around their arm, and take it to the well; and when they had pulled the bucket back up, they would unhook the rope from the pulley, and jealously take it back home.

One well and eleven ropes. And if you don’t believe it, go and ask and they will tell you, as they told me, that those eleven families did not get along and continuously played tricks on each other, and rather than buying a nice and necessary chain together for the pulley so that it could serve everyone, they would have filled the well with dirt and weeds.

War broke out, and the men of Cascina Piana went to war, recommending many things to their women, including not letting their ropes be stolen.
Then there was the German invasion, the men were far away, the women were afraid, but the eleven ropes were always safe in the eleven homes.

One day a child from the farmhouse went to the woods to gather a bundle of firewood and heard a moan coming from a bush. It was a partisan wounded in the leg, and the child ran to call his mother.
The woman was frightened and wrung her hands, but then she said:
We will take him home and hide him. Let’s hope someone helps your soldier father, if he needs it. We don’t even know where he is, or if he is still alive.

They hid the partisan in the hayloft and sent for the doctor, saying it was for the old grandmother.
However, the other women of the Cascina had seen the grandmother that very morning, healthy as a rooster, and guessed that something was going on.

Before twenty-four hours had passed, the whole Cascina knew there was a wounded partisan in that hayloft and some old farmer said: – If the Germans find out, they will come here and kill us. We will all come to a bad end.
But the women did not reason that way. They thought of their distant men, and they thought that they too, perhaps, were wounded and had to hide, and they sighed.

On the third day, a woman took a salami from the pig she had just butchered, and brought it to Caterina, who was the woman who had hidden the partisan, and said to her: That poor man needs to get his strength back. Give him this salami.

After a while, another woman arrived with a bottle of wine, then a third with a bag of yellow flour for polenta, then a fourth with a piece of lard, and before evening all the women of the farmhouse had been to Caterina’s house, and had seen the partisan and brought him their gifts, wiping away a tear.

And for all the time it took for the wound to heal, all eleven families of the farmhouse treated the partisan as if he were their son, and made sure he lacked nothing.

The partisan recovered, went out into the courtyard to sunbathe, saw the well without a rope and was very surprised. The women, blushing, explained to him that each family had its own rope, but they couldn’t give him a satisfactory explanation.

They should have told him that they were enemies among themselves, but this was no longer true, because they had suffered together, and together they had helped the partisan. Therefore they didn’t know it yet, but they had become friends and sisters, and there was no longer any reason to keep eleven ropes.

So they decided to buy a chain, with money from all the families, and attach it to the pulley. And so they did. And the partisan drew the first bucket of water, and it was like the inauguration of a monument.
That same evening, the partisan, completely recovered, left for the mountain.

Good night and sweet dreams from Francesca Ruberto ♥