“Water,” said the priest to the altar boy.  Giuseppe, not hearing him, the priest repeated the call.  Still the child, who was listening to the music, did not hear.  “Water,” said the priest a third time and gave Giuseppe such a sharp kick that he fell down the steps of the altar, hitting his head on the stone floor, and was taken unconscious into the sacristy.

After this Giuseppe was allowed to have music lessons with Baistrocchi, the organist of the village church.  At the end of a year Baistrocchi said there was nothing more he could teach his young pupil, so the lessons came to an end.

Two years later, when old Baistrocchi died, Giuseppe, who was then only ten, was made organist in his place.  This pleased his parents very much, but his father felt the boy should be sent to school, where he could learn to read and write and know something of arithmetic.  This would have been quite impossible had not Carlo Verdi had a good friend living at Busseto, a shoemaker, named Pugnatta.

Pugnatta agreed to give Giuseppe board and lodging and send him to the best school in the town, all for a small sum of three pence a day.  Giuseppe went to Pugnatta’s; and while he was always in his place in school and studied diligently, he still kept his situation as organist of Le Roncole, walking there every Sunday morning and back again to Busseto after the evening service.

His pay as organist was very small, but he also made a little money playing for weddings, christenings and funerals.  He also gained a few lire from a collection which it was the habit of artists to make at harvest time, for which he had to trudge from door to door, with a sack upon his back.  The poor boy’s life had few comforts, and this custom of collections brought him into much danger.  One night while he was walking toward Le Roncole, very tired and hungry, he did not notice he had taken a wrong path, when suddenly, missing his footing, he fell into a deep canal.  It was very dark and very cold and his limbs were so stiff he could not use them.  Had it not been for an old woman who was passing by the place and heard his cries, the exhausted and chilled boy would have been carried away by the current.

After two years’ schooling, Giuseppe’s father persuaded his friend, Antonio Barezzi of Busseto, from whom he was in the habit of buying wines and supplies for his inn and shop,—­to take the lad into his warehouse.  That was a happy day for Giuseppe when he went to live with Barezzi, who was an enthusiastic amateur of music.  The Philharmonic Society, of which Barezzi was the president, met, rehearsed and gave all its concerts at his house.