Buchanan, Brofferio and I accompanied him and his staff through the
village. They came into my small office. I showed the King my
designs for the hospital and the cottages we are to build at
Villaggio Regina Elena, a model village the Queen has built on the
other side of Messina. He liked the plans very much. When I spoke
of the great disaster the King said that the American duty put on
lemons was almost as great a disaster for Sicily as the earthquake.
Though, he added, ‘America is perfectly right.’ At 7 P.M. I was
taken on board the ‘Umberto I’ by the steam pinnace of the
‘Dandolo.’ I was received by the Queen, a most fascinating lady.
She thanked me many times, till I felt quite embarrassed. She was
really very enthusiastic about the plans for the hospital and the
cottages. The subject of the allotment of the houses came
[Illustration: VIALE GRISCOM, AMERICAN VILLAGE, MESSINA. _Page
431._]
up. I said I thought the plan the King had spoken of as his
idea--the drawing of the cottages by lots--was the only way, in
spite of the fact that some undeserving people might be housed
while people of higher grade, really the greatest sufferers, might
get nothing.”
The day after Mr. Roosevelt’s visit the Camp was astir early. The
Ambassador breakfasted with the officers and master carpenters in the
mess-room; in spite of the pouring rain, he was off before eight o’clock
with Belknap on a tour of inspection. He was delighted with everything,
had a good word for everybody. More than twelve hundred men were now
employed at Messina, Reggio, Sbarre and the smaller places, where our
Lilliputian “wooden palaces” were going up. The Ambassador, who had kept
in touch with every step of the work, now saw it “in full swing,” saw
the working of the system, the organization of the army of labor. There
were corps for clearing the ground, stacking the lumber, delivering the
building materials, and for cleaning up. There were interpreters, mostly
Sicilians, who had been in America, carters and water-boys. The Sicilian
and Calabrian carpenters all served an apprenticeship in the “shop.”
Here under the keen eye of Phillips, the carpenter in charge, each man
was tested, and then taught to do one thing,--whatever he proved fittest
for. To build one hundred houses a week was Belknap’s ambition;
sometimes he fell short, oftener he exceeded the number. This is the way
the thing was done:
First on the ground came Cook--ship’s carpenter from the “Celtic,” a
Boston man--with his gang. They cleared the land (the peasants had
already cut down the lemon trees), smoothed and leveled the soil, drove
the foundation posts, laid the sills.
Second, came Emerson, the Philadelphian, and his gang of framers. They
put up the side studs, the roof frame, the gable ends (made in the
shop), and laid the floor joists.
Third, came Cox of Brooklyn with his gang. They placed the end studs,
the door and window frames, their “cripples,” and the kitchen framing.
When the work of these two framing gangs was done, they passed on,
leaving a skeleton house behind them.
Now came one of the four enclosing gangs, organized by Neil Mackay, a
canny Scot, king of carpenters they called him. There were fifty men in
each enclosing gang, with one of their own number for leader, who was
made responsible for the tools. At seven every morning each gang was
given its tool-box; a close tally of the contents was kept, and at night
the precious tools must be returned intact. The enclosing gang made more
of a showing than the others. They took a skeleton house and clothed it
with clapboards and floors; so that the roofers--who came next with
their Sicilian _capo_ (boss), Ferrara--found something that looked a
good deal like a house. After the roofers had put on the roof, the
finishers came. They hung the doors, fitted and glazed the windows, put
on locks and fastenings, added the steps. When the carpenters were done
with the house, the bricklayers and masons took hold and built the
famous kitchen, putting in a stovepipe to make all complete, and in
their turn making room for the painters. These men gave each cottage two
coats of white paint, green doors and trimmings and dark neutral-colored
base, “so that the mud splashed up by the rain would not show.”
When Mr. Griscom had seen the different gangs at work, he went to
inspect the foundations of the hotel. While he was admiring the neat
brick arches, the royal automobile whizzed up to take the Ambassador,
Belknap and J. to the Villaggio Regina Elena, to meet the Queen. Having
seen and approved the plans for the hospital and houses the Ambassador
had promised to build in the American quarter of her model village, she
wished to see the site the buildings would occupy.
They found the Queen already there; in spite of the torrential
“earthquake rain,” she was determined to see every detail of her
village. The Ambassador walked with her and Captain Bignami; the others
fell in behind and followed with the lady-in-waiting, Brofferio and the
Italian officers.
“This is the bakery!” said the Captain. “This is the baker; he himself
built his oven. Your Majesty can see how light the bread is!”
Her Majesty said something kind to the baker, then crossed the street to
the butcher’s shop, neat as wax, with all the latest sanitary
contrivances; next to the school, then to the church, last of all to the
industrial school,--a busy hive of working women and girls.
“The Queen was perfectly delighted,” writes
[Illustration: THE KING, ESCORTED BY BUCHANAN, BROFFERIO AND ELLIOTT,
VISITS AMERICAN VILLAGE, MESSINA. _Page 436._]
[Illustration: MESSINA. PAINTING THE AMERICAN COTTAGES. _Page 439._]
[Illustration: CHURCH OF SANTA CROCE, AMERICAN VILLAGE, MESSINA. _Page
451._]
J. “The place fairly hummed with the noise of machinery. Everything was
going at full blast; women were making stockings and weaving
underclothes; there must have been twenty of them at least stitching on
Singer sewing-machines (the Singer people, by the way, sent a good
subscription). The Queen went into several of the houses, and found them
all in apple-pie order; Captain Bignami insists on perfect cleanliness.”
As they left the building a little girl, escaping from the guards who
kept the people back from pressing too closely on the royal party, threw
herself at the Queen’s feet and kissed the hem of her dress. Many
petitions were made, some of them for perfectly unreasonable things.
“It is so hard,” said the Queen; “these poor people think I can give
them whatever they ask me for.”
“That is not wonderful, considering all that your Majesty has given
them.”
“The hospital will stand here;” Captain Bignami pointed out the site on
the hillside above the village, commanding a magnificent view.
“You have heard,” it was whispered, “her Majesty names it the Elizabeth
Griscom Hospital?”
“What a good idea!”
The Queen now disappeared, and the Americans returned to Messina. The
Ambassador soon after took the ferry-boat for Reggio. Here he looked
over the work with Ensign Wilcox, and later went with Mr. Chanler to
Sbarre, to see the buildings put up there under Chanler’s direction.
Timothy, the carpenter, writing to his wife, says:
“The Ambassador, Captain Belknap and several other gentlemen came. My
men was working, though the mud was ears deep and one could not keep
looking well. The Captain introduced me to Mr. Griscom, who highly
commended me on the mill and its workings. They all took dinner with us
that evening, and we was twelve at table. When we got good and started
and was about half-way through, Mr. Chanler came in late and made
thirteen. He did not mind. Some of the boys kicked but we laughed them
out of it. Many funny stories was told. Finally broke up, singing
_America_ on the party’s leaving; it was raining very hard.”
“I had hoped,” writes Belknap, “that Mr. Roosevelt might see what was to
me the best feature of the whole enterprise, the hundreds of men busily
employed, earning good wages, making the air ring with the noise of
their saws and hammers; but it would have been futile to try and keep
the men at their places while he was passing. The men were in sight, to
be sure, by the hundreds, fresh from their work, with tools in hand,
nail aprons on. I doubt if much work was done the whole afternoon,
notwithstanding that Mr. Roosevelt was in the Camp only an hour; yet the
time lost was more than made up afterwards by the enthusiasm and
stimulus that the visit gave.”
So ended the meeting of the Triumvirs, Roosevelt, Griscom and Belknap.
To those who helped them in their work it was of such profound interest,
that the sixth of April remains the culminating point of the whole
Messina business.
What did it mean to _them_?
All three are men of action, who delight too much in doing to waste much
time in talking about what they have done. They felt it none the less
for all that. A single sentence from a letter of Mr. Griscom’s tells us
more than a volume of official reports.
“I may say personally, I have had the most valuable and interesting
experience of my lifetime.”
We said at the time that the rain was the only drawback to the complete
success of Mr. Roosevelt’s visit. Looking back at that memorable sixth
of April, we are not so sure of this. Was it not really best things
happened as they did? All the distinguished visitors received a more
exact idea of the actual conditions under which the work they planned
was carried out, than if the day had been fair. For more than three
months that cruel earthquake rain continued, with only a few rare days
of fair weather. The peculiar rain may in some measure have been due to
the fine dust discharged into the atmosphere, since every drop of rain
is formed around such a particle. This may, the scientists say, account
for the rain at Messina. Peculiar rains have been observed after other
earthquakes. The trouble is that earthquakes are so rare that the
scientists cannot tell whether the rain was a mere coincidence or due in
some measure to the disturbance. “The change of the electrical
potential due to the earthquake might serve to start a rain, and
altogether one is inclined to suspect that the rain was at least started
by the earthquake,” writes one expert. The truth is the scientists
themselves are all “up a tree” about that mysterious rain. Rosina
Calabresi, Timothy, and all the simple people who endured it, have no
such doubts. To them, to us, perhaps to Mr. Roosevelt, it remains a rain
apart, unlike all others!
XV
EASTER
“_Oggi il Signor è morto._”
“Dead? Impossible, we heard he was better!”
Gasperone smiled patiently, pointed to heaven and repeated the greeting
that, in Sicily, people give each other on Good Friday: “Today our Lord
is dead.”
I had come to spend Easter at Camp; Gasperone met me at the station. His
words brought a faint uneasiness that returned whenever the greeting was
repeated: I heard it many times that day--from Caterina, Zenobia, Zia
Maddalena, a dozen others--and always it brought that faint shock, as if
there was something especially significant to us in the words.
On our way to Camp we met Timothy, the carpenter. I stopped to ask how
things were going on.
“Badly!” said Timothy. “Ain’t it a pity? Such a fine day at last after
all this rain! It’s a holiday; the men don’t want to work. We’re short
of hands all round. I have only fifteen out of my gang of twenty-seven,
and they are working under protest.”
“This is a _festa_?” I asked Gasperone.
“No, not a feast; rather a great fast,” said Gasperone.
“First thing I knew of it’s being Good Friday,” said Timothy, “was the
hot cross buns for breakfast--the best bread I have eaten since I left
home. You ought to look into the church they rigged up; it’s like a
tempor’y railroad station. It certainly is cheerful to see them poor
devils hanging round the statuary--touching, too.”
It was well for all concerned that the men refused to work, that the
great “drive” was relaxed for a breathing space. They had all been
working over time, “on a spurt” to get things as far advanced as
possible for the visitors.
Saturday morning I went with Signor Donati and J. to call on the
Archbishop at his palace, one of the few habitable buildings in Messina;
it had been only slightly damaged by the earthquake. The handsome
courtyard was filled with wooden shanties, the lower halls, the very
stairs were crowded with families camping out. The palace had become an
asylum for the homeless, a storehouse for the treasures saved from
cathedral, church and monastery. While waiting for the Archbishop, we
were entertained by a Jesuit priest who spoke good English.
“You shall see all our precious things,” he said, “if you will send some
more blankets for our poor people and some vulgar shoes.”
The Jesuit, a lean virile man in a shabby cassock, took a big bunch of
keys from his belt and led the way to a distant wing of the palace. He
unlocked a heavy iron-barred door, motioned us to pass through, and
locked the door behind us. We were in a vast room, smelling faintly of
stale incense and wax candles, filled with the spoil of churches. There
were statues of saints, plaster angels, paintings of the Madonna,
crucifixes, fragments of rich altar cloths, embroidered vestments,
priceless old laces, gold and silver vessels for the mass, painted
missals, candlesticks, lamps, all carefully sorted and laid in piles. We
passed through room after room,
[Illustration: A MAKESHIFT CHURCH AND BELFRY. _Page 447._]
filled with this strange wreckage of the churches, to an inner
apartment, double locked, a high vaulted chamber where the most precious
treasures were kept, the gold and the silver _mantas_ of the Madonna
della Lettera. The gold _manta_ is an exquisite piece of goldsmith’s
work, beautifully chased and set with gorgeous jewels, most of them
royal gifts. We admired an emerald ornament offered by Queen Isabel of
Spain (the modern Isabel), who greatly affected emeralds, and a diamond
brooch given by Queen Margherita.
“Nothing is missing,” said the Jesuit; “if the soldiers overlooked
anything, the people found it and brought it to us--all the jewels of
the Madonna della Lettera, even the precious letter itself, are here.”
“The epistle,” Signor Donati explained, “written by the Virgin to the
people of Messina, and brought here by Saint Paul, who, as you know,
came to Sicily in the year 42.”
The Archbishop received us in his study, a big bare room filled with
supplicants, all talking at once. In order that we might hear each other
speak, he led the way to a smaller apartment next door. The Archbishop
is a tall handsome man, with a direct, forcible manner. We heard from
Sicilian friends that he had spent the whole of his large private
fortune for the benefit of his people and his church. The Archbishop
wasted no time; after thanking us for what had already been done, he
spoke of what was nearest his heart.
“Build us a church! That is our first need; then build us a barrack,
large enough to house eighteen priests. Out of my one hundred and five,
eighty were killed; but first of all the church, that is our greatest
need!”
“You shall have your church, be not afraid,” said Signor Donati.
“Behold, the Signor _architetto_ has brought his plans to show you!”
J. unrolled the plans with his neat drawings, and spread them out on the
writing table, using the ancient sand boxes of the silver inkstand to
hold down the corners:
“Notice that the church is to be in the shape of the Red Cross.”
“Admirable!” said the Archbishop. “Be seated.” With a gracious gesture
of authority, he motioned J. to a chair, seated himself at the table,
and bent over the plans.
Point by point, they went over the ground-plan, elevation, and all the
rest of it. The Archbishop was delighted; every ingenious detail pleased
him. His earnest, worn face relaxed; he really smiled, waxed
enthusiastic. Nothing, he declared, could have been better devised. This
was the attitude of the churchmen throughout. Whatever was done for them
was well done. The plans for the church were much more elaborate than I
had supposed from J.’s letters. Instead of a mere roofed-in shed, it was
to be a very solidly built wooden church on concrete foundations; it was
even to have a belfry.
“By grouping together the ordinary cottage windows, we have here a rose
window!”
“What a good idea!”
“By a miracle, enough red glass has been found in Messina to make a red
cross for the centre of the rose window--nothing is lacking, you see,
not even a stained glass window.”
“Capital!”
“If we succeed in getting your church built for you, there are two
requests we make in return.”
“Requests? Let us hear them.”
“First, that the church be called Santa Croce; this because, if built,
it will be by a gift of the American Red Cross.”
“A good name,” the Archbishop nodded; “it shall certainly be called
Santa Croce. The second request?”
“The Signor Comandante asks for the use of a bell one of our carpenters
saw lying on the ground outside a ruined church.”
“For what will the bell be used?”
“To call the men to work.”
“That is a good use. _Laborare est orare._ Send your men for the bell
when you like.”
The Archbishop rose as he said it, and the interview was over; a busy
man, he had given us all the time he could spare. The Jesuit came with
us to the door of the palace.
“The Signora will not forget? Vulgar shoes. Some were sent with high
heels, pointed toes--no use for us. Vulgar shoes for men and women. It
is understood?”
* * * * *
Grass was not allowed to grow under the feet at Belknapoli (so Mrs.
Griscom christened the Camp); that very afternoon they sent for the
bell. It came in a cart, drawn by a pair of swift red oxen, surrounded
by an enthusiastic crowd of Messinesi. With a deal of laughter and
shouting, the church bell was hung between two trees outside the
“pay-window.” From that day on, it called the men to labor and to rest,
morning, noon and night.[2]
On Saturday afternoon Gasperone knocked at my door. “Behold,” he said,
“the package from Rome the Signora expected. It seems in good
condition.” He laid down a big bundle that had come by post.
We had telegraphed Agnese from Palermo, to send some clothing to the
Camp to distribute for Easter. Agnese had been faithful, the post-office
prompt, the clothes had come in time. It cost twenty cents to send the
telegram, a very small sum to transport the package. In Italy the people
own their telegraph and express; they pay the minimum price for both
services. _When shall we do as much?_
The news that there were clothes to be had for the asking spread
rapidly; a line formed outside the guest house. The dresses, alas, did
not begin to “go round.” With the doctor’s help, we gave them to the
most needy, thwarting Gasperone, who wanted them all for his family. At
the end of the distribution Caterina arrived, out of breath, leading the
raggedest barefoot child in all ragged Messina. Nothing remained for her
but a bright blue dress and a buff silk handkerchief.
“It is finished, away, away!” Gasperone drove the grateful, gossiping
crowd before him. “The Comandante does not allow loafing about the Camp;
be off!”
On Easter morning the Camp slept late; it was to be a real holiday, for
the men at least. The matins of the birds began before dawn. At sunrise
the world was one great opal; as the sun grew stronger, the opalescent
mists disappeared; by the time the goats came rambling to the kitchen
door, the earth was an emerald between a sapphire sea and sky. Caterina
was the first to give me the lovely Easter greeting:
“_Oggi il Signor non è morto!_” (Today our Lord is not dead.)
A little girl in a pretty blue dress, a buff handkerchief tied over her
rippling bronze hair, shyly held out a lilac lily as she
lisped:--“Blessed be thou!”
[Illustration: PAY-WINDOW AND THE ARCHBISHOP’S BELL. _Page 453._]
“Don’t you know her?” cried Caterina. “It’s Teresa; the dress suits her,
yes?”
Teresa, the ragged little witch of last night, was transformed into a
neat demure child! All that bright beautiful Easter day I kept meeting
one and another of the girls and women, who the night before had been so
forlorn, so bedraggled. Today they were neat and freshly dressed for
Pasqua. How did they do it? In the streets, in the church, wherever you
met the women, you felt that effort at festive dress for the great feast
of the year, the world-old festival, that from the beginning of time we
have celebrated by one name or another.
The services in Messina this Easter Sunday were far more impressive than
any I ever saw at Rome or even at Seville. The pontifical mass was said
by the Archbishop in a small wooden theatre that had escaped
destruction. The congregation was large; there were now forty thousand
persons in Messina. Many of the congregation were maimed or crippled. A
man with a bandaged right arm at the elevation of the Host struck his
breast three times and murmured low, “_Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima
culpa._” Poor soul! whatever his sins have been, his sufferings must
have matched them! In the afternoon the images of the Saviour and of
Mary the Mother were carried in procession through Messina. Cries of
“Viva Maria!” followed the figures. A young girl took her earrings from
her ears, and one of the bearers climbed up and hung the offering in
Mary’s girdle.
“Ah, Santissima Maria!” cried a poor old woman with tear-worn eyes, “you
have nothing, not even a drum, to do you honor! Ah! the band that went
before you a year ago! The musicians are all dead. I lost my two
daughters. They are under the ruins; may I meet them in Paradise! See,
this is my husband; he is blind; we two old ones were saved; all the
children and the grandchildren were taken.”
As the figure of the Christ passed, the old blind man fell on his knees,
stretching out his arms and crying in a terrible voice: “_Santissimo
padre_, help us, help us!”
“This is the first real Sunday we have had at Camp,” said the doctor
that evening.
No one was ever obliged, or even asked, to work on Sunday, I think; our
men had caught the fever of work, it was the labor microbe that pushed
them on. The desolate people, the sad women with their wonderful
children, who came from their little wretched huts and looked with
longing eyes at the _baracche Americane_, stirred and stimulated our men
to toil through the bitter days of rain, and the dreadful days of wind,
when the pestilential dust of the city, that vast charnel house, was
driven into the eyes and throat.
Easter Monday was a _festa_, and the men did not work. Some of the
carpenters went for a long bicycle ride. Signor Donati appeared at
breakfast in a fine sportsmanlike costume with gaiters, cartridge belt
and game bag. We heard him blazing away all day with his gun. He shot
one swallow. The tiny scrap of a bird was brought in on a plate at
dinner, offered to me, then to the Captain, and finally sent to
Brofferio, who was ill in his room.
At the Villaggio Regina Elena there was a pretty ceremony that Easter
Monday. On Sunday a poor blind woman, Giuseppa Lo Verde, gave birth to a
little girl, the first child born in the Queen’s village. The child was
baptized the next day and given the name of Elena. The ceremony took
place at the tiny church the dear sailors built. Captain Bignami
holding the little one in his arms at the baptismal font.
One of the most popular places in the Camp was Dr. Donelson’s office, a
tiny surgery, not more than eight feet square. The poor people had soon
found him out--the unofficial work of this good physician deserves a
whole chapter to itself. The doctor’s patients were not ungrateful; that
Easter he had as thank offering a basket of golden citrons; a blue
heron, warranted “good eating,” a handful of coppers from Zia Maddalena,
whose grandchild he had cured. Though little was said of illness, there
was plenty of it about. I was warned not to go near certain hovels,
where scarlet fever was raging. The doctor was a daily visitor here; he
nursed and tended the little children with a tenderness they will not
forget. His office was rarely empty; during the half hour before dinner,
when work for the day was over, the officers gathered here to talk
things over. Sometimes the tinkle of Spofford’s guitar or the notes of
the doctor’s flute came from the little office, with its neat shelves of
bottles and faint odor of carbolic acid.