Geppetto's home consisted of one room on the ground floor. It received light from a window under a staircase. The furniture could not have been more simple, — a broken chair, a hard bed, and a dilapidated table. On one side of the room, there was a fireplace with wood burning; but the fire was painted, and above it there was also painted a boiling pot with clouds of steam all around it that made it quite real.

As soon as he entered Geppetto began to make a marionette. "What name shall I give him?" he said to himself. "I think I will call him Pinocchio. That name will bring with it good fortune. I have known a whole family called Pinocchio. Pinocchio was the father, Pinocchio was the mother, and the children were called little Pinocchios, and everybody lived well. It was a happy family."

When he had found the name for the marionette he began to work with a will. He quickly made the forehead, then the hair, and then the eyes. After he had made the eyes, just imagine how surprised he was to see them look around, and finally gaze at him fixedly! Geppetto, seeing himself looked at by two eyes of wood, said to the head, "Why do you look at me so, eyes of wood?"

No response.

After he had made the eyes he made the nose; but the nose began to grow, and it grew, grew, grew, until it became a great big nose, and Geppetto thought it would never stop. He tried hard to stop it, but the more he cut at it the longer that impertinent nose became.

After the nose he made the mouth. The mouth was hardly finished when it commenced to sing and laugh. "Stop laughing," said Geppetto,. vexed; but it was like talking to the wall. "Stop laughing, I tell you," he said again in a loud tone. Then the features began to make grimaces.

Geppetto deigned not to see this impertinence and continued to work. After the mouth he made the chin, then the neck, then the shoulders, then the body, then the arms and hands.

Hardly had he finished the hands when Geppetto felt his wig pulled off. He turned quickly, and what do you think he saw? — his yellow wig in the hands of the marionette! "Pinocchio! give me back my wig immediately," said the old man. But Pinocchio, instead of giving back the wig, put it on his own head, making himself look half smothered.

At this disobedience Geppetto looked very sad, a thing he had never done before in all his life.

Turning to Pinocchio, he said: "Bad little boy! You are not yet finished and already lack respect to your father. Bad, bad boy!" And he dried a tear.

There were now only the legs and feet to make. Scarcely were they finished when they began to kick poor Geppetto. "It is my fault," he said to himself; "I ought to have thought of this at first! Now it is too late!" Then he took the marionette in his arms and placed him on the ground to make him walk. Pinocchio behaved at first as if his legs were asleep and he could not move them. Geppetto led him around the room for some time, showing him how to put one foot in front of the other. When his legs were stretched Pinocchio began to walk and then to run around the room. When he saw the door open he jumped into the street and ran away.

Poor Geppetto ran as fast as he could, but he was not able to catch him; Pinocchio jumped like a rabbit. He made a noise with his wooden feet on the hard road like twenty pair of little wooden shoes.

"Stop him! stop him!" cried Geppetto; but the people in the street, seeing the wooden marionette running as fast as a rabbit, stopped to look at it, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed, so that it is really hard to describe how they enjoyed it all.

Finally, through good fortune, a soldier appeared, who, hearing all the noise, thought that some colt had escaped from its master. He planted himself in the middle of the road and with a fixed look determined to catch the runaway. Pinocchio, when he saw the soldier in the road, tried to pass between his legs, but he could not do it. The soldier, scarcely moving his body, seized the marionette by the nose (which was a very ridiculous one, just the size to be seized by a soldier) and consigned him to the hands of Geppetto, who tried to correct him by pulling his ears. But just imagine — when he searched for the ears he could not find them! Do you know why? Because, in the haste of making Pinocchio, he did not finish carving them.

Taking him by the neck, Geppetto led him back, saying as he did so, "When we get home I must punish you."

Pinocchio, at this threat, threw himself on the ground and refused to walk farther. Meanwhile the curious people and the loungers began to stop and surround them. First one said something, then another. "Poor marionette!" said one of them, "he is right not to want to go back to his home. Who knows how hard Geppetto beats him?" And others added maliciously "That Geppetto appears to be a kind man, but he is a tyrant with boys. If he gets that poor marionette in his hands, he will break him in pieces."

Altogether they made so much noise that the soldier gave Pinocchio back his liberty and took to prison instead the poor old man, who, not finding words at first with which to defend himself, wept bitterly, and on approaching the prison stammered out: "Wicked son! and to think I tried so hard to make a good marionette! I ought to have thought of all this at first."

What happened afterward is a story so strange that you will hardly believe it. However, I will tell it to you in the following chapters.