"THE GOLDEN MILESTONE"
"If we are to reach Rome at sunset, some one must lend a hand at the
wheel," said the chauffeur, as the children finished eating their
lunch. "There is not a moment to lose, and I, also, am hungry."
Rafael sprang at once to his side. He had longed to drive the
automobile from the very moment they began the journey from Florence,
and had often sat on the seat beside the chauffeur, watching him, and
asking him questions about his work.
There followed a glorious afternoon for the boy. He was a ready pupil,
the roads were good, and the friendly chauffeur a careful teacher.
They passed peasant women in gay bodices, with folded handkerchiefs on
their heads and long earrings in their ears, carrying baskets of fruit
on their arms. They passed peasant men driving donkeys or oxen, who
smiled at them from under hats decorated with pompons of colored paper
and tinsel. Geese ran out to hiss at them as they flew by, and hens
and chickens fluttered out of their way; but Rafael had eyes only for
the road.
They passed lemon groves and rose-gardens, and Edith was grieved
because Rafael could not enjoy with her every new and strange sight.
"I wanted you to tell me more about the Roman ruins," she said.
But the boy tossed a merry smile back at her for answer. "We will
speak more about those things when we are in Rome," he said. "I can
think of nothing now but flying," and he bent his eyes again to the
road.
At last they began the descent of a lofty hill, and the car glided
into the road which is the old Flaminian Way, leading directly to the
city.
Edith felt the thrill which always stirs the heart when one first
draws near to the Eternal City. She leaned forward and said to the
chauffeur, "How do you feel, to be riding toward Rome?"
For answer the man pointed to the sun, which was low in the western
sky. "There is only another hour of sunlight," he said with a smile.
"Oh, shall we fail to reach the Golden Milestone at sunset?" the girl
asked, as anxiously as if it were the most important thing in the
world to win their Marathon run.
But Rafael suddenly lifted a hand from the wheel. "Ecco!" he said,
pointing to the distant South.
Edith followed the direction of his finger. Far away she saw the
great dome of a cathedral rising toward the clouds.
"Rome! St. Peter's!" she shouted.
The boy nodded. The splendor of the ancient city flashed into his
mind. He saw as in a dream the magnificent temples and palaces, the
triumphal processions, the chariot-races, the games and combats of the
early Romans, about which his mother had told him so many stories.
"It is a wonderful city," he said. "What tales those old walls could
tell!"
As they crossed the River Tiber he heard Edith murmur behind him, "Oh,
Tiber, Father Tiber, to whom the Romans pray!" and then it seemed but
a moment before they were rolling through a massive stone gateway, and
the chauffeur had taken the wheel.
As Rafael lifted his eyes to look about him once more, they looked
straight into the eyes of a man who was riding in the opposite
direction, and he smiled. He did not know that he had smiled, nor that
this man was the king of Italy. His thoughts were back again with the
conquerors of the early days, and the splendors of the ancient city.
But the king had noticed the boy, and turned to look after him. "That
was the spirit of the old Romans looking from his eyes," he said to
his attendant.
The last rays of the setting sun fell upon the scarred columns of the
ruined Forum, as the car rounded the base of the Capitoline Hill and
stopped at the spot where the Golden Milestone once marked the
beginning of the Roman roads.
Rafael was speechless; but Edith took the olive wreath from the hamper
with exclamations of delight.
"Where will you have it?" she asked the chauffeur, "on your head or
your wheel?"
"It belongs to the car triumphal," he answered as they turned and
moved cautiously through the street-car tracks of modern Rome.
"There could never have been such a record run made by your kings and
emperors of olden times," said the girl proudly to Rafael.
But he was too happy with his thoughts to make any reply, and Edith
turned her attention to the conversation between her mother and the
chauffeur.
"To the Continental Hotel," Mrs. Sprague was saying, and all too soon
they had crossed the city, and were welcomed and given rooms in the
hotel. The chauffeur bade them good-bye, and their Marathon run was a
thing of the past.