men with the valises and hamper. Mrs. Simmons renewed her apologies
about the tea. Hot milk, a little fried pork, two of the eggs, and a
loaf of saleratus bread were all she had to offer, but it was very
welcome to the hungry travellers. There was some choice tea in
grandmother's hamper, but Mr. Sands very rightly judged it better to say
nothing about it just then, as it might have seemed that he and Helen
were not satisfied with their supper. They ate heartily, and soon after
went to bed in two chilly little lofts upstairs, where all the buffalo
robes and blankets from the carriage could not _quite_ keep them warm.
Helen lay awake a long time, thinking of her own disappointment and
grandmamma's, but more still about the Simmons family. How hard and
melancholy their life seemed, struggling with poverty and ague up here
among the lonely hills, with no doctor near them, and no neighbors! A
great sympathy and pity awoke in her heart. Her first impulse, when she
roused next morning, was to hurry to the window. It was still snowing,
and the drifts seemed deeper than ever! "Oh, dear!" she thought, "we
shall have to stay in this forlorn place another day, I am afraid." A
more generous thought followed: "If it seems so hard to me to have to
spend one day here, what must it be to live here always?" And she made
up her mind that, if they were forced to stay, she would do all she
could to make Thanksgiving a little less forlorn than it seemed likely
to be to Mrs. Simmons and Glory.
It did look forlorn downstairs in the bare little kitchen. Mrs.
Simmons's chill was coming on. She was up and dragging herself about,
but she looked quite unfit to be out of bed. Two little children, a boy
and a girl, whom Helen had not seen the night before, clung close to her
dress, and followed wherever she moved, hiding their shy faces from the
strangers. They got over their shyness gradually as Helen laughed, and
coaxed them, and by the time breakfast was over had grown good friends.
"Now," said Helen, gayly, after a last glance at the window, which
showed the snow-storm still raging, "I am going to propose a plan. You
shall go to bed, Mrs. Simmons,--I'm sure you ought to be there at this
moment,--and Glory and I will wash the dishes, and we will cook the
Thanksgiving dinner."
"Oh, dear! there ain't nothing worth cooking," sighed poor Mrs. Simmons,
but she was too ill to make objections. So Glory, or Glorvina, put the
kitchen to rights with Helen's help, and then the two girls sat down to
consult over dinner.
"Could you roast a turkey, do you think?" asked Helen.
"There ain't no turkey to be roasted," objected Glory.
"Yes, but could you if there were? Because I think there's one in the
hamper, papa, and I know grandmamma would let us have it if she knew."
"Why, of course she would. Use everything in the hamper if you like;
grandma would never think of objecting, and there's plenty more to be
had where those came from," said her father.
So the hamper was unpacked, and the turkey extracted, and a package of
tea and another of lump sugar, and a tumbler of currant jelly; and Helen
filled a big dish with oranges and white grapes, and the preparations
went merrily on. There proved to be half a squash in the cellar, and
Glory, wading out in the snow, fetched in a couple more eggs from the
barn, so pies were possible. Helen produced her recipe-book.
"Now I'm going to show you just how to make pies," she said; "I only
learned myself day before yesterday." And she thought, "How lucky it is
that I did learn, for now I can show Glory, and she'll always know. But
wouldn't Morrison open her eyes if she could see me?"
The spices and lemons came out of the hamper, of course, and the crust
had to be made of salt butter and no lard; but the pies turned out very
good, for all that, and no one was in the least disposed to find fault
with their flavor. Really, the little dinner was a great success.
Glory's potatoes were a little underdone, but that was the only failure.
The children ate as though they could never be satisfied. Mr. Simmons
cheered up and cracked one or two feeble jokes; and even Mrs. Simmons,
propped high in bed to survey the festive scene, called out that it
"looked something like," and she didn't know when there had been so much
laughing going on in their house before.
The clock struck three just as the last nicely washed plate was set away
on the dresser. Helen quite jumped at the sound. How short, after all,
the day had seemed which promised to be so long and dismal! And just
then a bright yellow ray streamed through the window, and, looking out,
she saw blue sky.
"Papa," she screamed, "it has cleared up! I do believe we shall get to
grandmamma's to-night, after all!"
And so they did. Mr. Sands, with Mr. Simmons's assistance, fitted the
rockaway on to a pair of old sledge-runners, and, with many warm
good-byes from the whole family, they drove off. Just at sunset they
reached Morrow Hill, and grandma was so glad to see them, and they so
glad to get there, that it was easy to forget all their disappointment
and delay. In fact, after a little while Helen convinced herself that
the whole thing was rather a piece of good fortune than otherwise.
"For, don't you see, papa," she exclaimed, "we had all Thanksgiving
evening with grandmother, you know, and she had it with us, so we only
lost part of our pleasant time? But if it hadn't been for the snow and
the breakdown, the poor Simmonses wouldn't have had any Thanksgiving at
all--not a bit; so it really was a great deal better, don't you see that
it was, papa?"
AT FIESOLE.
FIESOLE is a quaint old town which perches on a hill-top above the
valley of the Arno and the city of Florence. You must not pronounce it
as it is spelt, but like this--Fee-es-o-lee. From the Florence streets
people catch glimpses of its bell-towers and roofs shining above the
olive orchards and vineyards of the hillside. A white road winds upward
toward it in long, easy zigzags, and seems to say, "Come with me and I
will show you something pretty."
Not long ago there were two girls in Florence to whom, plainly as road
could speak, the white road seemed to utter these very words. Pauline
and Molly Hale were the names of these girls. It was six months since
they had left America with their father and mother, and it seemed much
longer, because so much had happened in the time. First, the sea voyage,
not pleasant, and yet not exactly unpleasant, because papa got better
all the way, and that made mamma happy. Now papa would be quite well at
once, they thought. His people (for papa was a clergyman) had sent him
away for that purpose. They were not a rich people, but each gave a
little, and all together it made enough to carry the pastor and his
family across the sea and keep them there one year, with very prudent
management. The Hales, therefore, did not travel about as most people
do, but went straight to Italy, where they hoped to find that sun and
warm air which are an invalid's best medicines.
"Going straight to Italy" means, however, a great many pleasant things
by the way. Molly was always reminding Maria Matilda, her doll, of the
sights she had seen and the superior advantages she enjoyed over the
dolls at home.
After this mention of a doll, what will you say when I tell you that
Molly was almost thirteen? Most girls of thirteen scorn to play with
dolls, but Molly was not of their number. She was childish for her
years, and possessed a faithful little heart, which clung to Maria
Matilda as to an old friend whom it would be unkind to lay aside.
"First, there was Paris," Molly would say to her. "No, first there was
_Deep_, where the people all talked so queerly that we couldn't
understand a word. That was funny, Matilda, wasn't it? Then, don't you
recollect that beautiful church which we saw when we went past _Ruin_?"
(Molly meant Rouen, but I am sorry to say her pronunciation of French
names was rather queer.) "And Paris too, where I took you to walk in the
gardens, and papa let us both ride in a whirligig. None of the home
dollies have ever ridden in whirligigs, have they? They won't
understand what you mean unless I draw them a picture on my slate. Then
we got into the cars, and went and went till we came to that great dark
tunnel. Weren't we frightened? And you cried, Matilda--I heard you. You
needn't look so ashamed, though, for it _was_ horrid. But we got out of
it at last, though I thought we never should; and here we are at the
padrona's, and it's ever so nice, only I wish papa would come back."
For Florence had proved too cold, and papa had joined a party and gone
off to Egypt, leaving mamma and the children to live quietly and cheaply
at Signora Goldi's boarding-house. It was a dingy house in the old part
of Florence, but for all that it was a very interesting place to live
in. The street in which the house stood was extremely narrow. High
buildings on either side shut out the sun, the cobblestone pavement was
always dirty, but all day long a stream of people poured through it
wearing all sorts of curious clothes, talking all sorts of languages,
and selling all sorts of things. Men with orange-baskets on their heads
strolled along, crying, "Oranges, sweet oranges!" Others, with panniers
of flowers, chanted, "Fiori, belli fiori!" Pedlers displayed their wares
or waved gay stuffs; boys held up candied fruits, wood-carvings, and
toys; women went to and fro bearing trays full of a chocolate-colored
mixture dotted with the white kernels of pine-cones. This looked very
rich and nice, and the poor people bought great slices of it. Pauline
once invested a penny therein, but a single taste proved enough; it was
sour and oily at once, and she gave the rest to a small Italian girl,
who looked delighted, and gobbled it up in huge mouthfuls. Whenever they
went out to walk, there were fresh pleasures. The narrow street led
directly to a shining sunlit river, which streamed through the heart of
the city like a silver ribbon. Beautiful bridges spanned this river,
some reared on graceful arches, some with statues at either end, one set
all along its course by quaint stalls filled with gold and silver
filigree, chains of amber, and turquoises blue as the sky. All over the
city were delightful pictures, churches, and gardens, open and free to
all who chose to come. Every day mamma and the children went somewhere
and saw something, and, in spite of papa's absence, the winter was a
happy one.
Going to and fro in the city, the children had often looked up the
Fiesole hill, which is visible from many parts of Florence, and Pauline
had conceived a strong wish to go there. Molly did not care so much, but
as she always wanted to do what Pauline did, she joined her older sister
in begging to go. Mamma, however, thought it too far for a walk, and
carriage hire cost something; so she said no, and the girls were forced
to content themselves with "making believe" what they would do if ever
they went there,--a sort of play in which they both delighted. None of
the things they imagined proved true when they did go there, as you
shall hear.
It was just as they were expecting papa back, that, coming in one day
from a walk with Signora Goldi, Pauline and Molly found mamma hard at
work packing a travelling-bag. She looked very pale, and had been
crying. No wonder, for the mail had brought a letter to say that papa,
travelling alone from Egypt, had landed at Brindisi very ill with Syrian
fever. The kind strangers who wrote the letter would stay with and take
care of him till mamma could get there, but she must come at once.
"What _shall_ I do?" cried poor Mrs. Hale, appealing in her distress to
Signora Goldi. "I cannot take the children into a fever-room, and even
if that were safe, the journey costs so much that it would be out of the
question. Mr. Hale left me only money enough to last till his return.
After settling with you and buying my ticket, I shall have very little
remaining. Help me, padrona! Advise me what to do."
Signora Goldi's advertisement said, "English spoken," but the English
was of a kind which English people found it hard to understand. Her kind
heart, however, stood her instead of language, and helped her to guess
the meaning of Mrs. Hale's words.
"Such peety!" she said. "Had I know, I not have let rooms for week
after. The signora said 'let' and she sure to go, so I let, else the
_piccoli_ should stay wiss me. Now what?" and she rubbed her nose hard,
and wrinkled her forehead in a puzzled way. "I have!" she cried at last,
her face beaming. "How the _piccolini_ like go to Fiesole for a little?
My brother who dead, he leave Engleis wife. She lady-maid once, speak
Engleis well as me!--better! She have _pensione_--very small, but
good--ah, so good, and it cost little, with air _si buono, si fresco_!"
The signora was drifting into Italian without knowing it, but was
stopped by the joyous exclamations of the two girls.
"Fiesole! Oh, mamma! just what we wanted so much!" cried Pauline. "Do
let us go there!"
"Do, do!" chimed in Molly. "I saw the padrona's sister once, and she's
so nice. Say yes, please, mamma."
The "yes" was not quite a happy one, but what could poor Mrs. Hale do?
No better plan offered, time pressed, she hoped not to be obliged to
stay long away from the children, and, as the signora said, the Fiesole
hill-top must be airy and wholesome. So the arrangement was made, the
terms settled, a carriage was called, and in what seemed to the girls a
single moment, mamma had rattled away, with the signora to buy her
ticket and see her off at the station. They looked at each other
disconsolately, and their faces grew very long.
"We're just like orphans in a book," sobbed Pauline at last, while Molly
watered Matilda's best frock with salt tears. The signora had a
specially nice supper that night, and petted them a great deal, but they
were very homesick for mamma, and cried themselves to sleep.
Matters seemed brighter when they woke up next morning to find a lovely
day, such a day as only Italy knows, with sunshine like gold, sky of
clearest blue, and the river valley shining through soft mists like
finest filtered rainbows. By a happy chance the Fiesole sister-in-law
came to Florence that morning, and drove up to the door in a droll
little cart drawn by a mouse-colored mule, with a green carrot-top stuck
over his left ear and a bell round his neck. She gladly agreed to lodge
the children, and her pleasant old face and English voice made them at
once at home with her. There was just room in the cart for their trunk,
and about five in the afternoon they set out, perched on the narrow
bench in front, one on each side of their new friend, and holding each
other's hands tightly behind her ample back. Signora Bianchi was the
sister-in-law's name, but "padrona" was easier to say, and they called
her so from the beginning.
The hill-road was nowhere steep, but each winding turn took them higher
and higher above Florence. They could see the curvings of the river, the
bridges, the cathedral dome, and the tall, beautiful bell-tower, which
they had been told was the work of the great artist Giotto. Further on,
the road was shut in between stone walls. Over the tops of these hung
rose-vines, full of fresh pink roses, though it was early March. Pauline
and Molly screamed with pleasure, and the padrona, driving her mule
close under the wall, dragged down a branch and let them gather the
flowers for themselves, which was delightful. She would not stop,
however, when, a little later, they came to fields gay with red and
purple anemones, yellow tulips, and oddly colored wild lilies so dark as
to be almost black; there were plenty of such on top of the hill, she
said, and they must not be too late in getting home. The black lilies
were _giglios_,--the emblem or badge of the city of Florence; the
children had not seen them before, but they remembered the form of the
flower in the carved shields over the door of some of the old buildings.
The road ended in a small paved _piazza_, which is the Italian name for
an open square. All about it stood old buildings, houses and churches,
and a very ancient cathedral with a dirty leather curtain hanging before
its door. Passing these, the mule clattered down a narrow side-street,
or rather lane. The streets in Florence had seemed dark and dirty; but
what were they compared with this alley, in which the wheels of the
little cart grazed the walls on either side as it passed along? Rickety
flights of outside stairs led to the upper stories of the buildings;
overhead, lines of linen, hung out to dry, were flapping in the wind. An
ill-smelling stream of water trickled over the rough cobble-stone
pavement. Jolt, jolt, jolt!--then the mule turned suddenly into a dark
place which looked like a shabby stable-yard. It was the ground-floor of
the padrona's house, and this was the place where Pauline and Molly were
to stay! They looked at each other with dismayed faces.
But the padrona called them to follow, and led the way up one stone
staircase after another till they came to the third story. Here things
were pleasanter. It was plain and bare; the floors were of brick, there
were no carpets, and the furniture was scanty and old, but the rooms
were large and airy, and through the open casement bright rays of
sunshine streamed in. Pauline ran to the window, and behold, instead of
the dirty lane, she saw the open piazza, and beyond, a glimpse of the
blue hills and the Florence valley! She called Molly, and, perched on
the broad sill, they watched the sunset and chattered like happy birds,
while the padrona bustled to and fro, preparing supper and spreading
coarse clean linen on the beds of a little chamber which opened from
the sitting-room. The padrona's kitchen was about the size of an
American closet. The stove was a stone shelf with two holes in it, just
big enough to contain a couple of quarts of charcoal. It was like a
doll's kitchen, Molly thought; and Pauline stared when she saw the
padrona produce a palm-leaf fan and begin to fan the fire, as if it were
faint and needed to be revived. But as she gazed, the charcoal was
coaxed into a glow, the little pots and pans bubbled, and hey, presto!
supper was ready, with half the trouble and a quarter the fuel which
would have been needed to set one of our big home ranges going. It was a
queer supper, but very good, the children thought; their long drive had
made them hungry, and the omelette, salad, and _polenta_, or fried mush,
tasted delicious. Everything was nice but the bread, which was dark in
color and had an unpleasant sour taste. The padrona smiled when she saw
them put aside their untasted slices, and said that she too used to
dislike Italian bread, but that now she preferred it to any other.
The padrona was delighted with her young visitors. She had long been a
widow. One of her sons was in the army, and seldom at home; the other
helped her about the house and tilled a little meadow which belonged to
them. She had no daughter to keep her company, and the sweet,
bright-faced American girls pleased her greatly. She helped the sisters
to undress, and tucked them into their beds as kindly as any old nurse,
and they fell asleep with her pleasant voice in their ears: "Good-night
and good dreams, little miss."
The morrow brought another fine day, and the girls improved it for a
ramble about the quaint town. It seemed to them the very _oldest_ place
they had ever seen--and, in fact, Fiesole is older far than Florence, of
which it was first the cradle and afterward the foe. They stood a long
time before the windows of the straw-shop, choosing the things they
would like to buy _if_ they had any money! Pauline fell in love with a
straw parasol, and Molly hankered after a work-basket for mamma. Both of
them felt that it was dreadful to be poor, but there was no help for it.
Then they climbed to an upper terrace and sat a long time looking on the
fine view it commanded, and talking in gestures to some brown little
children who came up to beg from them. After that, they lifted the
curtain over the cathedral door, and stole quietly about the ancient
church. It was dark and shabby and worm-eaten; but as they wandered to
and fro they came upon beautiful things,--tombs of sculptured marble
with figures of saints and madonnas, wreaths of marble flowers, bits of
old carved wood as black as ebony. It was strange to find such treasures
hidden away in the dust and gloom, and to think that there they were,
dusty and gloomy and old, before Columbus discovered the very new
continent which we call America! A queer smell breathed about the place,
a smell of must and age and dried-up incense. Pauline and Molly were
glad to get away from it and feel the fresh air and the sunshine again.
They rambled on to the western slope of the hill, and a little way down,
where the land descends in terraces to the wooded valley below, they
came upon the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre. They had never seen an
amphitheatre before, but they guessed what it was from a picture which
mamma had shown them. On the ledges which once were seats, where
spectators seated in rows had watched the lions and the gladiators
fight, crowds of purple violets now lifted their sweet faces to the sky.
After that, the amphitheatre became their favorite walk, and they went
back every day. The padrona warned them against sitting long on the
ground or staying out till the sunset dews fell, but they heeded what
she said very little; it seemed impossible that so pleasant a spot could
have any harm about it. But at last came a morning when Pauline
recollected the padrona's warnings, with a great frightened heart-jump,
for Molly waked up hot and thirsty, and, when she lifted her head from
the pillow, let it fall back again, and complained of being dizzy. The
padrona made her some tea, and after a while she felt better and got up.
But all that day and the next she looked pale, and dragged one foot
after the other as she went about, and the third day fever came upon her
in good earnest. Tea did no good this time, and she lay still and heavy,
with burning hands and flushed cheeks. The padrona tried various simple
medicines, and Pauline sat all day bathing Molly's head and fanning her,
but neither medicine nor fanning was of use; and as night came on, and
the fever grew higher, Molly began to toss and call for mamma, and to
cry out about her pillow, which was stuffed with wool and very hard.
"I don't like this pillow, Pauline--indeed I don't, it makes my neck
ache so! Why don't you take it away, Pauline, and give me a nice soft
pillow, such as we used to have at home? And I want some ice, and some
good American water to drink. This water is bad. I can't drink it. Make
the ice clink in the tumbler, please--because if I hear it clink I
shan't be thirsty any more. And call mamma. I must see mamma. Mamma!"
And Molly tried to get up, and then tumbled back and fell into a doze,
while poor Pauline sat beside her with a lump in her throat which seemed
to grow worse every moment, and to bid fair to choke her entirely if it
didn't stop. She did not dare to sob aloud, for fear of rousing Molly,
but the tears ran quietly down her cheeks as she thought of home and
mamma. Where was she? How was papa? Why didn't they write? And, oh dear!
what should she, should she do, if Molly were to be very ill in that
lonely place, where there was no doctor or any of the nice things which
people in sickness need so much? No one can imagine how forlorn Pauline
felt--that is, no one who has not tried the experiment of taking care
of a sick friend in a foreign land, where the ways and customs are
strange and uncomfortable, and the necessaries of good nursing cannot be
had.
Nobody in the world could be kinder than was the padrona to her young
invalid guest. Night after night she sat up, all day long she watched
and nursed and cooked and comforted. Pauline clung to this friend in
need as to the only helper left in the wide world. Beppo, the padrona's
son, walked into Florence and brought out a little Italian doctor, who
ordered beef-tea, horrified Pauline by a hint of bleeding, and left,
promising to come again, which promise he didn't keep. Pauline was glad
that he did not; she felt no confidence in the little doctor, and she
knew, besides, that doctors cost money, and the small sum which mamma
left was almost gone. Day after day passed, Molly growing no better, the
padrona more anxious, Pauline more unhappy. It seemed as if years and
years had gone by since mamma left them,--almost as if it were a dream
that they ever had a mamma, or a home, or any of the happy things which
now looked so sadly far away.