Walking in the end of May in the fields about Florence, Perugia, or Rieti, one still sees, at nightfall, the bagpipers entering the fields as the mowers seat themselves upon the hay-cocks for their evening meal; they play a few pieces, and when the train of haymakers returns to the village, followed by the harvest-laden carts, it is they who lead the procession, rending the air with their sharpest strains.
The joyous Penitents who loved to call themselves _Joculatores Domini_, God's _jongleurs_, no doubt often did the same.[10] They did even better, for not willing to be a charge to anyone, they passed a part of the day in aiding the peasants in their field work.[11] The inhabitants of these districts are for the most part kindly and sedate; the friars soon gained their confidence by relating to them first their history and then their hopes.

They worked and ate together; field-hands and friars often slept in the same barn, and when with the morrow's dawn the friars went on their way, the hearts of those they left behind had been touched.

They were not yet converted, but they knew that not far away, over toward Assisi, were living men who had renounced all worldly goods, and who, consumed with zeal, were going up and down preaching penitence and peace.
Their reception was very different in the cities.

If the peasant of Central Italy is mild and kindly the townsfolk are on a first acquaintance scoffing and ill disposed.

We shall shortly see the friars who went to Florence the butt of all sorts of persecutions.
Only a few weeks had passed since Francis began to preach, and already his words and acts were sounding an irresistible appeal in the depths of many a heart.