CHAPTER XIX
TWO PICTURES. THE SALESIAN CO-OPERATORS
On the afternoon of Palm Sunday, April 5, 1846, Don Bosco was the prey of indescribable suffering. He stood on the side of a grassy hillock in the picturesque field near Valdocco, watching his four hundred boys playing their merry games for the last time within its pleasant borders. These dear children of his Festive Oratory had made a pilgrimage of a mile that morning to the Church of Our Lady of Campagna, for Mass and Communion, the rosary and the litanies replacing all the way the usual merriment; for today the Festive Oratory must come to an end, if no home, no playground could be secured for their happy Sundays and feast days. Easter Sunday would not bring joy to those four hundred little hearts. These grief-stricken hours of the watcher are feelingly portrayed by his eloquent and devoted son, Father Bonetti:
"The distress of the peasant who sees the hail storm destroy his only crop, of the shepherd who is forced to abandon his flock to the wolves, was nothing compared to his affliction; it was more than that of a father or mother constrained to leave their little ones forever. 'Those who have helped me,' he thought, 'have now turned their backs upon me and left me alone with these four
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