GATHERING GRAPES IN TUSCANY
TO MADRE MIA IN VENICE:--
I am still glad! Yet it would not be so if you were not also glad for
me.
It was the joy of the morning to find a letter from you to-day. Two
letters have I now had in my life, and both from Italy. I had thought
we Italians had letters from nobody but "friends in America," as
Paolo, the fruit-man, always says.
And you say that Nicolo wishes to buy my boat; and that he will pay
for it after he has carried many passengers under the three bridges of
the Grand Canal, and to the Lido.
Well, say to him that I cannot sell my boat. Did I not make it myself,
from an old fisherman's boat, with only a little help from Carlo, in
his workshop on the canal of the chestnut trees? And of a truth I will
not sell it to Nicolo. But I shall give it to him for his birthday
gift, if in return he will carry old Grandmother Nanna every Sunday
morning to early Mass, so that she will not miss it because I am no
longer there.
I shall never want the boat again, because I am going to become a
citizen of Florence.
It is true that we leave to-day for our automobile ride to Rome, but I
shall come back again. That is what everyone does who has once been
here.
Why did you not tell me about the Palazzo Vecchio with the wonderful
statues in the Loggia? Did you think that because we have so much
beauty in our old Venice I should care for none elsewhere?
And the pictures in the Pitti and the Uffizi palaces,--you should have
warned me that I would wear my eyes out with much looking at them! And
it is one thing to hear of Michael Angelo, and quite another to see
his great works!
The American lady, Mrs. Sprague, with her guide-book, follows the
English-speaking guide about, and continually interrupts him to ask,
"At what page have we arrived now?"
But her daughter is different. She carries no guide-book. She has a
boy's mind and asks questions about everything. She asked me about the
tunnels through which my train came from Venice. Ah, those tunnels!
There were twenty-two of them in sixteen miles, and the train whizzed
in and out in the most exciting manner.
More I cannot say, but that I am perfectly happy! And I shall sign my
name Benvenuto, because the American girl says I am welcome.
A thousand greetings to you, from your absent crab of a boy in
Florence,
RAFAEL VALLA.
* * * * *
During that wonderful automobile ride from Florence to Rome, Rafael
was glad that his mother had told him so many stories of her native
city. There was pointed out to him on one of the Tuscan hills not far
from Florence, the same yoke of oxen that had drawn the car through
the city streets on the previous Easter, and he was able to tell Edith
the whole story of the "Burning of the Car."
The chauffeur, under Mrs. Sprague's directions, took them off the
highway and close to the oxen and their driver. The horns of the oxen
were decorated with garlands of flowers and gay paper streamers,
because they were again to take part in a festival,--the festival of
the vintage; and on the drag behind them rested a great tun for the
wine.
Rafael spoke to the smiling contadino and asked if they might follow
him to the harvest.
"Not follow," he answered; "the oxen move but slowly, and must first
drag the tun to the wine-cellar at the farm-house. But you may lead,"
he added. "It is a straight road along the base of the hill and
across the brook, to the gate of the vineyard."
So they sped along in the automobile, and soon reached the busiest,
merriest place that Edith had ever seen. Men and women, boys and
girls, all dressed in the brightest, gayest colors, were cutting
grapes from the vines which hung in long festoons from tall trees.
They were constantly coming and going, with full baskets or empty
ones, and some of the boys had climbed ladders to pick the grapes from
the tree-tops.
There was much shouting and laughter, with happy calls to one another
about the number of baskets of grapes each had picked, and the number
of lire the work would bring.
"See how carefully that boy is cutting the grapes from the vines,"
observed Edith, pointing to a lad about Rafael's age, who sang as he
worked, and who lifted the luscious, purple clusters of fruit into his
basket as lovingly as if they could feel the touch of his hand.
Mrs. Sprague called attention to some of the vines, which had already
been stripped of leaves as well as fruit.
"Why do they pick the leaves also?" she had Rafael ask one of the men.
He answered that the grapes grew so thickly that it was necessary to
pick off the leaves in order that the fruit might get the full
benefit of the sun. "There is much to do for the grapes before they
can be picked," he added. "We must see to it that neither hail nor
wind spoils the clusters before the vintage."
Then he explained that the grapes would soon be taken to the house and
poured into great vats, where they would be made into wine.
Before Edith could ask about this process, Rafael shouted, "The oxen!
Here come the oxen!" and she turned to see the gaily decorated, white
oxen moving slowly across the field, drawing a big wagon.
The driver led the oxen to the farther end of the vineyard, and the
boys and girls climbed upon the wagon with their baskets, and were
carried under the festoons of vines, picking clusters of grapes here
and there as they rode slowly along.
"I should like to help pick the grapes," said Edith wistfully, as she
watched the merry pickers at their task.
Rafael asked one of the men if she might be allowed to do so. He
smiled and nodded, pointing to an empty basket on the ground, and soon
the two children were filling it together, and laughing and shouting
with the others.
"This is like a moving picture," Edith said to Rafael, when at last
their basket was filled and they had climbed into the ox-cart to ride
with the overflowing baskets and grape-stained children to the
farm-house.
As they passed under the vines, Edith cut off some of the trailing
ends and made crowns for the bareheaded, black-haired peasant girls,
and one of them, more daring than the others, crowned Edith's own
black hair.
Mrs. Sprague had already found her way to the house, and to the heart
of the farmer's wife, by admiring the little baby that lay sleeping in
its cradle under a fig tree near-by.
The baby was wrapped in a swaddling band, a piece of linen four or
five yards long, which is wound round and round the tiny body,
beginning just under the arms and ending at the toes. It is a curious
fashion the Italians have of dressing their babies, and has been
followed ever since the Mother Mary wrapped the infant Jesus in a
swaddling band, so many hundred years ago.
"Pretty bambino," Mrs. Sprague had said, pointing to the baby, and the
mother had found a hundred things to say in reply, in her voluble
Italian fashion, not one word of which Mrs. Sprague could understand.
The farmer's wife was still talking when the vintage procession swung
into the yard, the boys and girls lifting their voices in a festival
song and keeping time to the swinging of the horns of the great white
oxen.
Then there was the merry confusion of emptying the grapes into the
huge vats, and the choosing of certain men and maidens to trample out
the purple juice.
Two or three always stand together in a single vat and press the
grapes with their bare feet, thus forcing out the juice, which runs
through an opening in the base of the vat into a wooden bucket.
Some of the farmers use a machine to press the grapes, but many think
it should be done, as it was in old Bible times, with the human foot.
It seems that the feet know how to avoid crushing the seeds and the
skins, as a machine cannot know.
Rafael asked to be allowed to press the grapes in one of the vats, and
after permission had been given him, Edith suddenly asked to do it
also.
The farmer shook his head doubtfully. "It is very hard work," he
objected.
Edith bade Rafael say that she was an American girl, and not afraid of
hard work, and at last she was permitted to stand with the Italian boy
in the vat and tread until she grew tired.
However, to stand in the midst of juicy grapes means to spoil one's
clothes, so the farmer's wife took Edith and Rafael into the house and
dressed them like peasant children.
There was much laughing and shouting from the other boys and girls
over the sight of the two strange wine-treaders, and it reminded Edith
of something. "Doesn't the Bible speak of the singing and laughing
that go with the vintage?" she asked her mother.
"Yes," answered Mrs. Sprague, "there are many references in the Bible
to the vineyard and the vintage; and also to the fig trees, which seem
always to be planted in the vineyard."
"When I was learning in my Sunday-school lessons about the vine and
the fig tree, I never dreamed that some day I should be eating grapes
and ripe figs, and treading in the wine-press, as they did in olden
times," said Edith.
"It will be the best wine in the whole country," said the farmer, when
at last Edith was lifted out, her feet crimson with the blood of the
grapes.
"I must see where they put it," she said, and followed to the dark
wine-cellar, where the grape juice was poured into a tank and left to
ferment.
It was late in the afternoon when they were once more in readiness to
continue their journey toward Rome. The farmer's wife, who had told
them all her family history, in Italian, would have been glad to keep
them over night, but Mrs. Sprague shook her head.
"Tell her that the bambino is very cunning," she said to Rafael, "but
we must be far along on our journey to-night."
Rafael's heart sang again, "I am so glad to go!" Every moment spent in
the automobile was one of joy to him. He barely noticed the queer old
streets and ancient buildings of the towns through which they passed.
He cared more for the rapid motion of the car, and the sensation of
flying through the air; and besides, he knew well the customs of the
people in the Italian towns, and there was nothing strange to him in
the sight of men and women sitting at tables outside the cafés, or
wandering up and down in the public promenades.
But he chattered in gay delight over the country sights. "See the
haystacks!" he would cry, "and the golden pumpkins! and oh, the ears
of yellow corn!"
A small flock of geese ran into the road, hissing at the big red
automobile, and Rafael laughed gaily.
"You should not laugh at those geese," Edith reproved him. "No doubt
they are descendants of the sacred geese that saved Rome." Then after
a moment of silence, she added, "Saved Rome from what?"
"From the enemy," Rafael answered, with another laugh.
"I know that, of course," said Edith; "but Rome has had so many
enemies that I can never keep the different ones separated in my
mind."
Mrs. Sprague overheard the conversation, and said, "That is one reason
why I brought you to Italy, Edith. I want you to understand all this
Roman history, so that you will be able to pass your examinations when
you return to school."
Rafael was interested to hear something about the American school
examinations, and Edith told him of her troubles with history.
Then Rafael told of the difficulty he always had in remembering
whether George Lincoln lived before Abraham Washington, or afterwards;
and while Edith was explaining to him his mistake in the names, they
arrived at one of the many olive-groves that dot the Tuscan hillsides.
"I think the vineyards are much prettier," said Edith. "But the
twisted black trunks, and the gray branches of the olive trees are
very picturesque," she added.
Boy-like, Rafael began at once to make friends with the farmer, and
soon learned the whole process of crushing the oil from the ripe black
fruit.
The farmer led them all to the sheds where the great stones were set
up to crush the olives. He showed them just how the work was done, and
then explained about the different grades of oil.
"We buy a great deal of your Italian oil in America," said Mrs.
Sprague; and when Rafael had repeated this in Italian to the farmer,
the man went into the house and soon returned with two bottles of his
very best oil, which he presented to Edith and her mother.
"We Italians sell more oil than any other country," he said proudly to
Rafael, "and we use a great quantity ourselves. It is much better than
butter for cooking."
Then he showed them the barrels of mammoth green olives which he had
sold on the trees to an American dealer the month before, and which
were soon to be shipped to Genoa.
Mrs. Sprague looked at the setting sun, and advised that they hurry on
to the next town, where they were to spend the night; and Rafael
rejoiced once more in the speed of the automobile.
But Edith was tired, and was glad to reach a comfortable bed in Siena,
and lay her head upon the pillow filled with live-geese feathers;
after which she knew nothing more of Italy, until the next morning's
sun wakened her, and she began another day's journey over the roads of
Tuscany.