Estratto. © Riproduzione autorizzata. Diritti riservati.
2. Leonardo
He is about eighteen, totally illiterate. We talk in sight of his flock in the Madonie Mountains, which bound Palermo Province.
When I was little, I played out in the alley, that’s all. What else could I do? I hired myself out at thirteen. My father was a shepherd, first I worked with him. When you watch over animals all year round, you get to know them.
First my father did it alone, then I tended to those animals with him. At San Giorgio they didn’t want to let me milk because I did it with too much love and care. I always milked that way. See, if you pinch their udders to start with, they don’t let you milk no more. You got to be careful not to scratch them. When you milk them, each one’s different. Some are wild and others are tamer. There’s some with real good teats and others all cock-eyed. Some are harder and others are just ripe for milking. They won’t go near a lot of other folk. Me, they’ll let me hug them.
I can’t count, but I can tell from a distance if one’s missing. I look real close till I know. I know them all in person. There’s this one’s mother, here’s that one’s lamb. Don’t matter how many, I know em all. I been with sheep, a hundred, maybe two. Come sunset the boss’d count em. He knew the exact amount. Me, I watch them, I’m always on their track, combing them out, petting them, gathering beans to feed them. They come right up to me. I love them and they love me.
They don’t get names. If I call em, they turn and come back. When a ewe’s going to drop a lamb, I figure it all out, cause her teats swell and she don’t eat. Then she’ll sprawl on the ground, and her water’ll break. And she bleats. If everything goes OK, she’ll stop bleating. If not, I go to her, make her comfortable, and help her deliver with my own two hands. First the feet come out, then the nose, and the mother keeps licking to dry it off. When it’s born, the mother jumps up. About a quarter of an hour and the lamb gets up too. It starts to suckle. I saw lambing the first time with my father, and I lent a hand and learned to deliver sheep.
The virgins are the ones that still haven’t given birth yet; we call em “ewes” when they have lambs. Goats who still don’t have kids are called “kids,” if they have one they’re called “nannies.” After that they’re just plain “goats,”
Kids are different, they don’t tag along with their mothers unless they’re too scrawny. They’ll stray from her after a month, the ones you raise—the others you slaughter before that. Unless they get a whipping they never stick with the nanny. They’ll nurse at daybreak and then at dusk, that’s when you can keep em in the barn. Otherwise they like to run free, they always try to get loose. Trouble is, then they don’t get enough to eat. Their umbilical cord dries up all by itself.
They’re beautiful animals. I pasture them where you find the best grass. If there’s nothing to eat they complain. Come noon, they huddle together and try to give each other shade. Later, they scatter all over the place.
Do I know about towns? Well, I been in Castellana and Alimena. And money? We never touch the stuff.
Sheep die off the minute they war certain flowers and wild berries, so you got to send the goats out into the fields first. They eat everything and don’t die. Nothing hurts em. After that the sheep can pasture, they won’t die cause the flowers and berries are gone.
To pass time I make dummies out of clay and throw rocks at them. When shepherds have pipes, they play. But I don’t I don’t know how to make one. I make dummies or just pile up rocks as a target. I get what I need from the road. All us shepherds do it.
The stars? I seen em, I don’t know what they are. They’re like pictures of the Lord. See, in pictures of the Lord there’s stars. They’re sort of like eyes, who knows? The moon is the Madonna. So I heard, and I’ll say so too. I pray to them. When it’s cold I say to the sun, “Come forth.” When it’s too hot I say, “Refresh us.”
