Excerpt from Signa: A Story HE was only a little lad coming singing through the summer weather; singing as the birds do in the thickets, as the grilli do in the corn at night, as the acacia bees do all the day long in the high tree-tops in the sunshine. Only a little lad, with brown eyes and bare feet and a wistful heart, driving his sheep and his goats, and carrying his sheaves of cane or millet, and working among the ripe grapes when the time came, like all the rest, here in the bright Signa country. Few people care much for our Signa and all it has seen and known. Few people even know anything of it at all, except just vaguely as a mere name. Assisi has her saint, and Peru gia her painters, and Arezzo her poet, and Sienna her virgin, and Settignano her sculptor, and Prato her great Carmelite, and Vespignano her inspired shepherd, and Fiesole her angel monk, and the village Vinci her mighty master; and poets write of them all for the sake Of the dead fame which they embalm. But Signa has found no poet, though her name lies in the pages Of the Old chroniclers like a jewel in an Old king's tomb. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.