glance at Pietro. “The animal was not being used. Sor Pietro himself
said it was too miserably weak to draw the plough. He had no use for
him, nor will have till it is time to gather his lemons and take them to
the Marina. Should he deny this poor miserable brute when my officers,
the magnanimous, the Heaven-sent, demand such an animal? He deserves to
die of an apoplexy!”
At this moment an orderly brought a letter to Brofferio. As he turned
to read it, Zenobia sprang like a panther at Pietro, caught him by the
shoulder, shook him like a sack, and hissed in his deaf ear:
“Ingrate, cabbage head, hangman!”
“You have received a very large sum of money this morning,” said
Brofferio, folding up his letter, “fully fifteen francs. Do me the favor
to pay this man five sous. How many times hath she borrowed the _asino_?
Five sous for each trip. Now then!”
Zenobia produced a soiled and knotted handkerchief from her stocking and
counted the money unwillingly into Pietro’s seamy brown palm.
“Now I wonder,” said Brofferio, as the pair walked amicably away
together, “if that comedy was all arranged beforehand?”
* * * * *
The early days at Mosella recall the description of the building of
Carthage. The busy master-carpenters, each with his foot-rule in his
pocket, his blue pencil behind his ear, move about among the gangs of
Sicilian laborers. One measures out on the bare ground the place where
the timbers that form the sills of the next house shall be laid;
another directs the driver of a heavy ox-team, drawn by a pair of sturdy
red steers, where to discharge a load of fragrant new cut pine boards.
At noon work comes to a halt. Francesco taps at the office door and
announces:
“Dinny ready, Mister!” Francesco is a Sicilian of the Greek type,
straight as a lance, with a fine head, thick curling hair and eyes of
gray sapphire. He escaped unhurt from his house the morning after the
earthquake, after lying for hours under the ruins.
At dinner Belknap sits at the head of the long table; on his right is
Brofferio. Then seated in the order of their rank come the officers, the
“architect,” as they call J., and the master-carpenters. The table is
laid with neatness--for a camp, with elegance. There is a white
table-cloth with napkins, borrowed from the “Celtic;” at either end
stands a bowl filled with pale quince blossoms, wreathed with
ivy--winding ivy besprent with purple berries, the kind that twined the
bacchantes’ thyrsus. This is Gasperone’s idea, the touch of the
æsthetic, the legacy of Hellas, that every day and every hour you see in
Sicily, that makes this land and its people rich in grace beyond all
others.
“Them flowers looks kinder pretty,” said Timothy, the carpenter. He made
a mental note to write his wife about Gasperone’s decoration of the
“mess” table.
Francesco and Gasperone, the Sicilian servants, have a third helper, Mr.
Buchanan’s “boy,” a magnificent negro. This full-blooded African giant
stands six-feet-two; he is broad of shoulder, narrow of hip, with teeth
like new-peeled almonds and eyes like the big Sicilian oxen. He has the
same pictorial “value” as the blacks Paul Veronese painted in his
Venetian feasts.
Dinner begins with a loin of good roast American pork from the
“Celtic’s” store. The big negro offers a dish to go with the pork,
whispering in a gentle lisp:
“Apple thause, thir?”
After dinner there is a short pause; work only begins again at one
o’clock. Pipes are lighted; in Flagstaff Square the sailors have a game
of baseball, watched and cheered by a delighted crowd of Messinesi. Work
is over for the men at halfpast five, for the masters
[Illustration: AVVOCATO DONATI. _Page 238._]
[Illustration: MR. BUCHANAN’S “BOY” AND HIS MATES. _Page 258._]
[Illustration: MESSINA. QUITTING WORK. _Page 258._]
[Illustration: ARRIVAL OF THE BARBER. _Page 265._]
only at bedtime. There is no theatre, no place of amusement, not even a
cinematograph in Messina. At sunset the young sailors, who have worked
all day and are not yet tired, wrestle and box together, for the lust of
life that is in them. A crowd of men and boys gathers to watch and
applaud; if the sounds of labor are welcome in this silent city, the
joyous sounds of play are twice welcome. Between nine and ten J., who
works in a little cubby-hole shut off from the captain’s office, is
ready to turn in. He has stood all day at his drawing-board, making the
plans as fast--or almost--as Belknap asks for them. His bed is
“delightfully comfortable;” the “spring” is given by nailing the planks
at one end of the bunk and leaving them free at the other, so that they
have some play; mattress and pillow are of good sweet seaweed.
“Last night was chilly,” he writes, “but thanks to the traveling rug, in
addition to two blankets and Hooper’s coat, I was quite warm. I got the
tip from a native that the nights were cold and passed on my acquired
knowledge, but it was unheeded by the others, who got left. I knew I
should be too sleepy to put the extra things on, so I plumped them all
on before I went to sleep. Tonight we are going to be supplied with
extra blankets. It’s now a little after one o’clock and the heat is
quite uncomfortable; it seems stupid to be talking of blankets.”
By ten all lights are out except Belknap’s, always the last. Every night
he knots up the business of the past day; makes each record, answers all
letters, plans out the next morning’s work. When he is not at work
elsewhere, the Chief sits in his office writing those endless
despatches, letters, reports, that are not the easiest part of his
prodigious labor. Read them over now: it seems impossible that the man,
who carried on this minute detailed correspondence, could have found
time for anything else. You feel the character of the writer in every
page; the will of iron, the heart of a child, the training of a sailor
who, in order to command, learned first to obey. Nowhere in all this
mass of letters and reports will you find Belknap “posing” before his
correspondent or that imaginary audience, the world, that may always get
a sight of such documents; everywhere, with a skill not born of chance,
whenever he can “throw the limelight” on one of his men, he does so
with a generous hand. Belknap is one of those natural leaders of men,
who seem providentially to arise in great emergencies. His tireless
energy, his cheerful courage are positively infectious; his example and
influence are felt in every phase of the enterprise of which he was the
leader.
Just what was his work? To bring order out of chaos. Men are the
instruments of mankind; the race chooses the individual to carry out its
desires, as the sculptor his tools. The nation, torn by a sister’s
anguish, acted first with the heart of Roosevelt, second with the mind
of Griscom, third with the will of Belknap; these three men were the
triumvirate who put through the imperial thing America desired. The
records of a man of action are brief; for him it is the doing that
delights, not the telling; and yet in reading over Belknap’s report one
comes, now and again, upon a pearl of pathos, a diamond of humor, that
makes the formal document a precious thing, that makes the camp by the
Torrente Zaera one of those that will not be forgotten.
In these early days ten American carpenters superintended the Italian
workmen (later there were more). These skilled mechanics drilled and
trained their men with care and energy, for among other things the camp
by the Torrente Zaera was a school of carpentry. Perhaps five per cent.
of the Italians were really fair workmen; the majority were careless and
slovenly at their craft. Many of them had never worked at anything, let
alone carpentry. The houses they built were the least part of our
carpenters’ good work; they established a standard of excellence unknown
hitherto in a community where, though the good St. Joseph is honored,
his trade is sadly slighted.
The carpenters and sailors, as such men will, brought their own manners,
their point of view with them and stoutly maintained them. They were
strong, tough-fibred men, more inclined to teach than to learn from
their strange experience. The first Sunday afternoon Timothy and Hugh
went out together for a stroll in the country. They met a Sicilian
riding a donkey; he was followed by an old woman whom they guessed to be
his grandmother, carrying on her head a large box and a small keg.
“See that big man, so proud looking, with those two baskets of lemons
loaded on to that poor jackass’s back; his little legs are bending under
him,” said Timothy.
“Such treatment as they give the jackass should not be allowed,” Hugh
agreed. “The Italians certainly are a hard lot.”
“It’s Gasperone!” cried Timothy.
“Hullo you!” roared Hugh. “Get right off that donkey and let the old
lady ride; do you hear?”
Hugh, a blond giant, in a white linen jumper and breeches, white canvas
cap and puttees, black shoes and neckerchief, impressed the grandmother
of Gasperone. She stopped and stood staring at him, her skinny arms
akimbo, her feet firmly planted in the road. He was pleasant to look at,
this strange man from the north, with his frank blue eyes, his yellow
hair, his rough kindly voice. She was not too old (what woman is?) to
take notice of a handsome young man.
“Get down!” ordered Hugh.
“Awe ri’, awe ri’,” Gasperone answered soothingly, then said something
to the old woman. She laid her load down and, laughing heartily, seated
herself on the donkey.
“Now make a beast o’ burthen o’ your fat self, and see how you like it,”
Hugh commanded.
“Awe ri’!” Gasperone took upon his back, awkwardly enough, the load his
grandmother had so skilfully balanced on her head. The two Americans
watched the couple out of sight round the corner. Brofferio, who saw the
whole scene from the launch--he was on his way to the Italian warship,
“Dandolo”--declares that as soon as they were out of sight the
grandmother dismounted and Gasperone returned to the donkey’s back.
The “Hern” was the second timber ship to arrive. Her Norwegian captain’s
wife was on board; Captain Belknap mentions her presence as if it were a
fortunate and happy thing.
“When I beheld a most beautiful young lady in a boat making for the
shore,” Timothy was heard confiding to Hugh, “blushing like a June
morning in Indiana, I went and got a hair-cut and a shave.”
“She certainly is a charming person,” Hugh agreed; “goodness is shining
from her eyes.”
“They tell over to the ‘Hern’ that she came on board at Algiers, and
that the captain has been like a boy with a new sled ever since,”
Timothy continued, “which strengthens my belief in the captain’s wife’s
goodness.”
One of the Sicilians, who had applied for work as a carpenter and proved
utterly unfit for it, had now, with Belknap’s encouragement, set up a
barber’s saloon close to the camp. After the “Hern’s” arrival he was
much patronized.
The “Hern” was ordered directly to Reggio, where a second camp had been
established under the command of Ensign Wilcox. This camp, while smaller
than that at Messina, was admirably managed from the first. One morning,
while the “Hern” was discharging her cargo, Wilcox was waked at half
past five by the news that a big pontoon, their only lighter, that had
been loaded the night before, was sinking. Wilcox plunged overboard with
a line, hoping to get it made fast ashore and then beach the pontoon
before it sank; but as he reached the shore, the lighter went down with
a final gurgle, carrying with it half their nails, glass and roofing
paper. The boards, doors and other light material went floating about
the harbor, and as in Reggio there be land thieves as well as water
thieves there was a lively time guarding the floating property. Wilcox
was fortunate in finding a diver, who undertook to dive for the precious
nails and the other heavy things that had sunk to the bottom of the
harbor. Timothy, who had been ordered to Reggio, was deeply moved by the
accident. He used every effort to hurry the diver to his work, but for
some inexplicable reason the man kept putting it off.
“I have been trying to get that diver started,” Timothy complained. “He
can’t talk English but I finally found out he would not go down while it
rains. I thought that strange but found out the reason at last; he is
_afraid_ to go down lest the man pumping would _stop_ if a heavy shower
comes on and let him die for want of air.
“The river pirates is thick as fleas,” Timothy went on; “they are
lifting every thing in sight.”
The “river pirates” got away with very little, however, as they were
pursued and forced to bring back the stolen articles.
Timothy was anxious that the Reggio camp should lack nothing the Messina
camp possessed; he had a great deal to say to Hugh on the subject
whenever they met.
“It’s a treat to see the Stars and Stripes
[Illustration: WORKSHOP OF AMERICAN VILLAGE, REGGIO. _Page 265._]
[Illustration: FIRST AMERICAN HOUSE IN REGGIO. _Page 265._]
[Illustration: PALMI. AMERICAN SHELTERS. _Page 275._]
[Illustration: REGGIO. CARPENTERS AT WORK. _Page 265._]
floating here,” he said to Hugh. “I want Wilcox to fly them at Reggio
but he darsen’t without orders. What’s the captain’s notion?”
“Why, we was the first to hoist our flag the day we come ashore,” said
Hugh. “After that all the other people, English, Swiss, French, Germans,
had to hoist their banners, all over the shop, till now the place looks
like a blooming world’s fair.”
Or like a camp of latter-day crusaders, Hugh!
“I think we should have our own colors, all the same,” Timothy
persisted. “If the ‘boss’ goes away, I will send them up if I swing for
it. Besides, it will create respect. Our men have had to wait a day for
their pay. I hope they get it tonight. Last evening to hear them roaring
you would think Old Tilley, the pig killer, was back in life!”
“Time to haul her down,” Hugh looked to the west.
It was sundown. The bugler sounded attention, the men all stood in line,
facing the flag. The bugler played the salute to the colors, and just as
the red ball dropped behind the blue ridge of mountains, Hugh slowly,
slowly hauled down the flag.
“That,” said one who watched the pretty ceremony, “is a survival of sun
worship.”
“Mithras, God of the Sunset, low on the Western main,
Thou descending immortal, immortal to rise again!
Now when the watch is ended, now when the wine is drawn,
Mithras, also a soldier, keep us pure till the dawn!”
(KIPLING.)
IX
GUESTS AT CAMP
“Mithras, God of the Midnight, here where the great bull lies,
Look on thy children in darkness. Oh take our sacrifice!
Many roads Thou hast fashioned; all of them lead to the Light,
Mithras, also a soldier, teach us to die aright!”
(KIPLING.)
About the time the lighter sank, I received a letter from the camp,
asking for a man who spoke English, had some knowledge of accounts--a
man, in fine, like Thompson--who would come to Messina. Belknap was
shorthanded; the work was doubling up on them. Was there any chance of
that nice boy, Flint? Would Thompson possibly reconsider? Thompson could
not; Flint was in Egypt.
I remember well the day the letter came, if not the date. I was in
Florence, spending a few happy hours by the Arno, in the shadow of the
Giglio, Giotto’s perfect tower, second among towers only to the Giralda
of Seville. There had been a wonderful jaunt from Rome in an
automobile, that reminded me of my mother’s stories of her wedding
journey through Italy in a traveling carriage. The motor has brought
back the romance to travel, that seemed banished forever when the last
_vetturino_ sold his traveling carriage, driven out of business by the
railroad.
We four--Mr. Parrish the host, Miss Helen Lee, his niece, Charles, the
Yankee chauffeur, and I--had passed through Umbria, Tuscany, visited
Perugia and Gubbio, stopped at Assisi and Siena, looked at the gem, San
Gimignano--but that’s another story.
That golden day in Florence we hunted up our old friend, George de
Forrest Brush, the painter, corralled him in his studio and carried him
off willy-nilly to lunch at the Trattoria Aurora on the heights of
Fiesole. It was too cold to eat in the garden, so after a long look at
the blue Val d’Arno with its encircling mountains, the Carraras and the
Apennines, we went into the bare little dining-room. Soon the two
specialties of the inn smoked on the table, a dish of chicken cooked
with red and yellow peppers--the sauce would make an anchorite
greedy--and whole artichokes fried to a golden brown, served with melted
butter. For those who wanted it, there was a flask of good red Chianti
di Broglio; for all there was the rarer wine of friendship.
After luncheon we started in the automobile for the convent, perched on
a hill high above Fiesole. When we had made half the distance, we passed
an automobile stuck fast in the mire. Soon after we were obliged to turn
back on account of the snow; the road runs in spirals; some of the turns
are sharp, a true mountain highway, with a precipice on either side.
Just as we turned a sharp curve, the machine came to a sudden stop. A
tree trunk, big as a railroad sleeper, lay directly in our path, placed
across the road since we made the ascent.
“A close call!” muttered the chauffeur, as he put on the brake and
stopped the car. If he had not been quick as a flash, we should have had
a bad accident. Charles next sprang from the car, dragged the log to the
edge of the path and hurled it down the mountainside.
“That dago will have a little trouble to tote you up again!” he
chuckled, as the great piece of wood hurtled down the steep.
“A miss is as good as a mile,” our host reassured us.
“Such wickedness as that makes me sick,” said Charles, as he twirled the
steering wheel and set the car in motion. We were all silent for the
next mile or two.
Which of us was it meant for? Who has so cruel an enemy? We never knew.
When I read lately of Mr. Edward Boit and his brother being “held up”
and robbed near Vallombrosa, not very far from Fiesole, I wondered if we
had escaped the same band of brigands.
“Do you know a man who wants to go down and help Captain Belknap at
Messina?” I asked Mr. Brush, as we sped down the incline, leaving
Fiesole behind, past the Villa Palmieri where the characters of
Boccaccio’s Decamerone lived during the great plague of 1348.
“My son Gerome has wanted to go down ever since the earthquake. I will
send him to see you tonight,” said the artist.
That evening Gerome Brush called at our hotel; it was agreed that I
should write Belknap, offering his services in whatever capacity he
could be useful.
“I am in the automobile business now,” the young man said, “but that’s
only temporary. When I go back to America I shall study law. I have been
trying to get to Sicily all winter; do fix it up for me!”
It was “fixed up.” Belknap telegraphed us to send Brush, and we all
returned to Rome.
“Why don’t you end up your trip by all coming down here?” The question
was repeated several times in J.’s letters. As a result, on the 24th of
March, Patsy, Gerome Brush and I left Rome for Sicily. We traveled as
far as Naples with Mr. Parrish and his niece, who were to sail in a few
days for home and could not come with us. The trip from Rome to Naples
was a pleasant one, though the spring was very backward. Only a few
quince and apricot trees were in blossom; the beautiful vineyards were
still dark, without a sign of promise. Hanging from tree to tree in the
old classic fashion, the vines made a lovely pattern of delicate black
tracery against the fervent blue sky.
At Naples we regretfully parted with Mr. Parrish and Miss Lee. Patsy
laid in a stock of sandwiches, milk chocolate and newspapers, and we
set our faces to the south, prepared for any fate.
Soon after leaving Naples our train broke down.
“_E rotto il Westinghouse_,” the guard said to each separate traveler in
turn.
“Look at Vesuvius, or what’s left of it!” cried Patsy. We had halted
within sight of the great volcano. Patsy had not seen it since the
eruption of 1906, when one of the twin cones sank out of sight and the
whole outline of the mountain was altered, losing much of its
distinction. “I never thought to see the everlasting hills change their
very shape before my eyes--that gives you an idea of volcanic force!”
On the 25th of March we woke to a wet world. Through the blurred windows
of the sleeping-car we looked out upon emerald fields and fruit
orchards, between stretches of rough uncultivated land. The way passed
through lemon groves, where the trees were covered thick with pale gold
lemons, the air was sweet with the fragrance of their blossoms; through
vast plantations of blue-green cactus, like those of Morocco; through
orange groves where the branches bent beneath the weight of red-gold
fruit. Everywhere was that splendid contrast of the red and yellow
golds, mixed with the gorgeous dark green foliage of the nespoli, whose
fruit ripens much later--now there were only hard little green balls
between bunches of long graceful leaves. Here and there the green was
softened by rosy peach blossoms, the intenser pink of the apricot, or
the queer gray sprawling limbs of fig trees covered with silvery bloom,
though not a leaf had yet unfolded.
“How can we be such fools as to linger in a city when the miracle of
Spring has begun!” Patsy exclaimed; we all agreed never again to commit
that folly of follies. At every station we passed cars loaded with piles
of newly sawed American lumber, shipped from Naples and distributed at
various points on the Calabrian coast. At Palmi we saw the first ruins.
Some little wooden huts had been built on the lower slopes of the hill;
on the side-tracks were rows of extra railway carriages, turned into
shelters for the poor homeless people. It had been raining desperately
until we reached Palmi, where fortunately it held up long enough for us
to have a good look at the magnificent olive trees, the finest I ever
saw. A whole forest of olives goes climbing up the mountainside, like
hoary giants with wild arms tossed to heaven. The trees in Dante’s
Inferno, that bled when their limbs were broken, must have looked like
these ancient olives of Palmi, centuries old, still the main support of
the peasants on whose land they grow. The chestnuts were as fine in
their way, sturdy umbrageous monarchs of the wood, but lacking the
mystery that above all other trees the olive, Athena’s gift, possesses.
Patsy had an errand at Bagnara. From the midst of a group of sad,
listless looking women, who stood watching our train as if it were the
one important event of the day, a tall girl in black pushed her way to
the front. There must have been some signal agreed upon; how else could
Patsy have found the sister of Sora Clara the moment he stepped on the
platform at Bagnara? They talked together until our train started, when
Patsy slipped something into the girl’s hand and sprang into the car.
“Don’t report me,” he said. “I have turned over a new leaf; I don’t let
my right hand know what my left hand does. I
[Illustration: OLIVE GROVE NEAR PALMI. _Page 276._]
[Illustration: CAPTAIN BELKNAP AND CARPENTER FAUST ON GROUND FLOOR OF
HOTEL. _Page 284._]
[Illustration: AMERICAN VILLAGE, MESSINA. VIEW FROM THE HOTEL. _Page
287._]
reported every franc I gave away in Rome, till I caught on to what it
meant. My poor Sanscrit professor had been promised substantial help. I
reported the little money I gave him; after that he got nothing more. I
was told never to give a single family more than fifty francs. How’s a
man who has lost everything he has in the world going to start life
again on ten dollars?
The situation of Bagnara recalls Amalfi; there is a fine smooth beach,
where the fishing boats are drawn up on the shore. The nets are spread
higher up on the sand. Above the lovely scallop of shore the little town
perches on the hillside. At Gioia Tauro, just before Palmi, the
semicircle of golden beach in the shape of a scimitar, the beryl green
water, reminded us of Tangiers.
After we passed Bagnara the train went very slowly.
“At this rate we shall never reach Taormina tonight,” Patsy complained.
“_Pazienza, Signorino! chi va piano va sano!_” said the guard. “This is
the first train that has gone through since the landslide.” This was the
first we had heard of a landslide.