Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Juliet Sutherland, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
The Vocabulary at the end of the book gives the Phonetic
pronunciation of the Italian words used in the book.
The Unicode alphabets have been given wherever available.
But the following two Phonetic diacritical marks do not
have a Unicode representation.
inverted "T" -- (uptack)
"T" -- (downtack)
[Illustration: ON THE APPIAN WAY]
LITTLE PEOPLE EVERYWHERE
RAFAEL IN ITALY
A GEOGRAPHICAL READER
BY ETTA BLAISDELL McDONALD
Joint author of "Boy Blue and His Friends,"
"The Child Life Readers," etc.
AND JULIA DALRYMPLE
Author of "Little Me Too," "The Make-Believe Boys," etc.
SCHOOL EDITION
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1910
_Copyright_, _1909_,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
* * * * *
PREFACE
The very best way to understand the life and customs of a foreign
country is to visit it. If that is impossible one may still learn much
by reading a story of the people who live there. As this is true of
grown people, so is it true of children. They can become acquainted
with the children of other lands by reading stories of their simple,
daily life, and by living it for a little while within the pages of
the story-book.
It is no longer the fashion for our school children to learn by rote
the facts written down in their geography about all the corners of the
earth; they must know rather the children in these foreign lands,--the
sights they see, their work and play, their festivals and holidays,
their homes, their ambitions.
Such a tale is told in this little book about Italy. Rafael Valla, a
lad of fourteen, is seen first in Venice; he rows his boat on the
canals, hears the music of the band in the Square of St. Mark, goes to
the Rialto bridge for the serenade, and suddenly, through a chance
meeting with an American girl and her mother, the way is opened for
him to see Italy. He joins them in Florence, and they ride over the
Tuscan roads in an automobile, stopping to see the peasants gathering
grapes, and to visit an olive-farm. In Rome they see the ruins of the
ancient city under the direction of a guide, and they go to Naples,
and visit Pompeii and Vesuvius.
The book is full of pictures of Italian life. One sees the children
feeding the pigeons in Venice, the Easter festival in Florence, the
vintage with its merry-making in Tuscany, the Roman ruins, the
picturesque street-life in Naples with its noise and gayety, and the
silent streets of Pompeii. There are many such pen pictures of Italian
life, and the story should appeal to the imagination of the child and
awaken his interest in Italy and its people.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I AN EVENING IN VENICE 1
II VIVA L'ITALIA! 6
III RAFAEL'S TRAINED TOPS 11
IV STREETS OF VENICE 16
V STRINGING VENETIAN BEADS 21
VI SUNSET FROM THE TOWER OF SAN GIORGIO 28
VII A CHAT ABOUT VERONA 36
VIII EDITH'S FLORENTINE MOSAIC 41
IX RAFAEL LEAVES VENICE 46
X GATHERING GRAPES IN TUSCANY 51
XI A MARATHON RUN TO ROME 62
XII "THE GOLDEN MILESTONE" 72
XIII A RAMBLE IN ROME 76
XIV A MORNING IN THE COLOSSEUM 85
XV MERRY NAPLES 95
XVI THE BURIED CITY 103
XVII THE MAGIC OF THE FOUNTAIN 110
* * * * *
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
On the Appian Way _Frontispiece in Color_
The Grand Canal, Venice 2
Children feeding Pigeons in the Piazza of
St. Mark, Venice 11
Gateway of San Sebastian, Rome 68
Ruins of the Claudian Aqueduct 78
The Colosseum at Rome 88
The boys of Naples eating macaroni 99
Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius 103
"The army of boys bearing baskets of earth from
the excavations of Pompeii" 106
* * * * *
RAFAEL IN ITALY
CHAPTER I
AN EVENING IN VENICE
It was a glorious summer evening. The moon, rising over the city of
Venice, shone down on towers and domes and marble palaces, and made a
golden path in the rippling waters of the lagoon.
The squares of the city were all ablaze with lights, while from every
window and balcony twinkling jets of flame found their reflection in
the canals, and lengthened into shimmering arrows of gold.
There were no sounds save the calls of the boatmen, the soft lapping
of the waves against the marble walls and steps, and occasional
strains of music from the military band in the Piazza of St. Mark.
No place in all the world shines with more brilliancy than Venice in
carnival time. The city is like a diamond, as it catches the myriad
rays from moonlight and starlight, and flashes countless answering
gleams into the shadows of the night.
It is small wonder that people travel from the farthest corners of
the earth to watch the glitter and sparkle of this City of the Sea.
It was on this summer evening that Rafael Valla, a Venetian lad of
fourteen, decided to become a soldier of the king.
He was sitting in the water-gate of his mother's house, pointing with
his toe to the reflection in the canal of a particularly large and
brilliant star. "If the starlight moves to the right of my toe," he
said to himself, "I will go to the Piazza."
He knew perfectly well that he would go to the Piazza. The music of
the band was calling to him, and the star was slowly shifting its
light, as it had done on many a night while Rafael sat waiting and
dreaming in the gateway.
The tide was gently pulling his little boat away from the
orange-and-black mooring-post, at the foot of the steps, toward the
larger canal.
"Perhaps my boat knows of all the gay sights that are waiting for it
in the Grand Canal," the boy thought idly. "It may well know," he
added in his thought; "it has been there times enough."
The Grand Canal is the largest and finest of all the water-ways which
thread the city. It is spanned by three beautiful bridges, and, on
either side, rise the marble palaces of the ancient Venetian nobility;
those rulers of men whose names fill the "Golden Book of Venetian
History."
[Illustration: THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE.
Notice the mooring-posts and the black gondola.]
But Rafael lingered in the gateway. The music of the band was a
promise of something still better. Soon hundreds of gondolas would
gather at the bridge of the Rialto to hear the songs of the
serenaders, and that was what the boy loved best.
As the bells in the square sounded the hour, he rose, reached for the
rope, and pulled his boat toward the stone landing steps. His motions
were alert and decisive, and made him seem a different boy from the
one who had been leaning so carelessly against the post of the
gateway.
Rafael was good friends with his oar, and the little boat, which was
only large enough to seat three comfortably, hurried gladly toward the
lights of the Grand Canal, and the music in the beautiful Piazza of
St. Mark.
Hundreds of black gondolas were moving up and down the canals, manned
by boatmen in white linen, for the night was very warm; and a melody
from an Italian opera, sung in a musical tenor voice, floated from one
of the boats.
"I, also, would sing, if it were not pleasanter to listen," said
Rafael to his boat. Then it occurred to him that it might be most
pleasant of all to find his friend Nicolo and take him to hear the
singers at the Rialto bridge.
He turned toward the steps of the Piazzetta, murmuring as he did so,
"These other boats are also moving toward the Rialto. I must find
Nicolo quickly, or we shall lose our favorite place at the bridge."
The boy tied his boat in the shadow of the steps, and took his way
across the small square into the larger one in front of the Cathedral
of St. Mark.
Numberless columns and pillars surround this square, and each one was
outlined with twinkling golden lights. From every ornament and statue
that grace the cathedral and palaces shone countless numbers of the
fairy flames. The crimson globes of the larger lamps in the square
added a different tone, and the silver light of the moon blended with
the whole, dazzling Rafael with the brilliancy.
He shaded his eyes from the glare, as he searched rapidly among the
crowds for his friend. The polished stones of the pavement in front of
the cafés were covered with little tables, and hundreds of people were
sipping ices or drinking coffee.
Nicolo was often to be found selling trinkets among the people at the
tables, but he was not there to-night. Nor was he seated on the back
of one of the two stone lions that crouch on their pedestals just
beyond the cathedral.
It is from these convenient seats that the band sounds better than
almost anywhere else in the square. At least, the boys of Venice seem
to find it so, and so many years have they climbed up to watch the
crowds of people in the Piazza of St. Mark, that the backs of the
lions are worn smooth with much rubbing.
A little bootblack and a water-boy held the places now, and
occasionally begged for custom from any one who happened to linger
near.
Passing in and out among the crowds were pretty young girls selling
flowers, ragged boys carrying trays of fruit--crimson peaches, purple
grapes and ripe figs--and men selling bracelets and necklaces of
shells and colored beads.
It was a gay scene. An officer, in the naval uniform of the United
States of America, stood in the central doorway of the cathedral,
watching the movements of the crowd and listening to the music.
As Rafael gave up trying to find Nicolo and turned toward the canal,
the officer left his place and followed the boy. "Where away?" he
asked pleasantly, in English, as Rafael took his seat in the boat.
"To the Rialto; to hear the serenade, Signore," the boy replied
courteously, also in English; and would have pushed away from the
steps, but the stranger asked, "Will you take a passenger?"
"Si, Signore," answered Rafael, "I have been looking for one," and he
held the boat still while the officer found a seat.