MERRY NAPLES
Rafael wrote his mother joyful accounts of those happy days in Rome.
And he saw the king! It happened upon an afternoon when all Rome,
dressed in gayest costumes for one of the festivals, crowded into open
carriages and drove out to the Villa Borghese.
In the shade of a great tree, where a living spring bubbles up from
the ground, Rafael twisted a leaf into a cup, which he filled with
water and offered to Edith.
As he looked beyond the girl, he met a piercing glance from a pair of
brilliant blue eyes. This time he knew the king at once, and saluted
him.
The king smiled, saying to his aide, "I have seen that boy before. He
wore the look then of an older Italy, but now he has the promise of
the young country in his eyes."
Rafael wrote his mother of that smile. "I could follow the king
anywhere for another like it," the letter said.
Then he wrote of the heavy Roman faces; the hard, tiresome pavements,
and the noisy clang of the street cars,--all so different from his
bright, silent Venice.
"But there are pleasant things," he wrote. "There are many beautiful
fountains where the water gushes all day; and I often go out of my way
for a sight of the Pope's soldiers, the Swiss Guard, standing at the
entrance to the Vatican. They make me think of our Venetian
mooring-posts with their many-colored stripes; and their stately
halberds are not unlike the prow of our gondolas. I am very grateful
to Michael Angelo for designing a costume which reminds me of home.
"Often we meet schools of boys walking two by two, wearing black
dress-suits and high, stiff black hats, and I am glad I am not one of
them."
His mother sighed as she read of his endless pleasure, and wondered if
it would estrange him from his quiet life in Venice. Then she wrote a
long letter in answer, in which she said, "Remember that the fine old
Roman character was weakened through ease and indulgence. Remember,
also, that our young king likes nothing so much as devotion to duty."
Her letter ended with a quotation from an English poet,--"Live pure,
speak true, right wrong, follow the king."
Rafael read between the lines that she feared he would learn to like
his happy life with the Spragues too well. He lifted his eyes from the
letter and acknowledged to himself that this freedom from care and
responsibility was very pleasant. Mrs. Sprague indulged him as she
indulged Edith. The treasures of the shops flowed into his own room as
well as hers, and no door which money could open remained closed to
them in this city of precious sights.
His eyes fell again to the letter, and a choking feeling filled his
throat as he pictured his mother sitting alone in the home in Venice.
"The dear, lonely mother!" he said to himself. "My letters have given
her sad thoughts."
Then, with a boy's carelessness, he said, laughing lightly at his
English joke, "I can write wrong, it seems; but can I follow the
king?"
Just then Edith ran into the room crying, "Mother has decided to take
the noon train to Naples. Doesn't she do everything suddenly?" And
Rafael forgot his mother's letter in his pleasure over another
journey.
The car ride to Naples always remained in the boy's mind as a
succession of pictures; but no picture could reveal the many phases of
his mind as he passed from one experience to another in the days that
followed.
"The guide-book calls this the most fertile valley in Europe," said
Mrs. Sprague, as they rode along, catching glimpses of farmers plowing
in the fields. The distant hills were soft and blue, but on drawing
near to them, terraces and flights of steps were to be seen on the
slopes.
At last Edith called, "I see Vesuvius!" and the wonderful volcano lay
before them. Its smoke rose in a straight column and then broke,
trailing off into the distance like the smoke from an ocean liner.
"It makes the mountain look like a man-of-war," exclaimed Rafael, and
the two pairs of eyes hardly saw anything else until they reached
Naples.
"Let us go to a hotel where we can see the fire at night, if it comes
out of the volcano," said Edith; and they took rooms from which they
could watch every mood of Vesuvius.
Before they had been in the city three days Edith decided that she
liked it better than she did Rome. "The people there looked so
serious," she said, "while here they are very merry and sociable."
Mrs. Sprague laughed. "They are certainly sociable enough," she said.
"Yesterday I heard a woman read a letter aloud from an upper window to
her friend on the sidewalk below."
Edith laughed in her turn. "Was the window in the same house where we
saw the rooster and chickens in the upper balcony?" she asked.
[Illustration: "IT IS A FUNNY SIGHT TO SEE THE BOYS OF NAPLES EATING
MACARONI"]
Rafael felt a touch of sadness at hearing their light talk. "The poor
people!" he said. "When they live upstairs there is no other way but
for them to keep their animals up there with them."
"Many of them seem to live in the basements of the rich," observed the
girl.
To Rafael, the sight of such great poverty was no new thing, but Edith
spoke of it constantly, and wrote of it to her father in America.
"There seem to be nothing but happiness and laziness here among these
poor people," the letter said. "They live and eat upon the sidewalk,
and it is a funny sight to see the boys swallowing macaroni.
"Many of the rooms in which the people sleep seem to be spaces left in
the foundation of a castle, with no windows or doors in the openings.
Often the castles seem to be ruined hills; and they have great holes
in their barren sides, like caverns in the sides of cliffs; and we see
barred doorways instead of windows, with dungeons beyond.
"Then suddenly the hills blossom out into ramparts and parapets, so
that it is impossible to distinguish between hills and castles; and to
puzzle us still more, long flights of steps lead up between hilly
castles and castled hills.
"Occasionally we see a group of basket-makers, or tailors, or
shoemakers on the sidewalks among the family groups of fathers,
mothers and children. A little beyond such a group we saw yesterday a
herd of goats resting comfortably in the shade, also on the sidewalk.
"Early in the morning these goats are driven through the streets. They
stop in front of a doorway, a woman runs out with a cup, the man milks
her cup full and then drives on to the next doorway. Sometimes, if the
woman lives on an upper floor of the house, one of the goats is driven
up the stairs, to be milked at her very door.
"We see rich people, also, driving in their splendid carriages on
their most beautiful boulevard, overlooking the blue bay; and in
contrast to them and their spirited horses, a contadino will come
bringing a load of produce to market from the country, driving a white
cow harnessed between a full-grown horse and a tiny mule."
While the American girl was marvelling at the queer mingling of riches
and poverty in Naples, Rafael was drinking in the beauty of the bay,
and of the lovely villages which lie along its border.
Mrs. Sprague stayed two or three weeks in Naples, although she said
that she did not like it at all. "The people are so shiftless," she
complained, picking up her skirts and walking round a group of girls
who were sitting on the sidewalk combing their hair. "It is the
dirtiest city in the world."
"Oh, Mother!" Edith exclaimed, "how can you say so? When we go out on
the bay in the evening and I look back at the city, it seems to me
most beautiful. It is like an amphitheatre, with its tiers of lights
rising one above another. Then she sang softly:--
"My soul to-day is far away,
Sailing the Vesuvian Bay!"
"Avanti!" exclaimed Rafael suddenly, and shook his head at a boy who
was offering a pair of pearl opera-glasses for Mrs. Sprague to buy.
Mrs. Sprague drew the back of her hand under her chin, tossing her
head at the same time.
The little peddler laughed and showed his white teeth at the awkward
motion of the American lady, but he did not insist that she should
buy.
As for Edith and Rafael, they looked plainly astonished. "Why,
Mother!" said the girl admiringly, "you are talking in a foreign
language when you use signs. How did you happen to find out such an
easy way to dismiss the little beggar?"
"I was driven to it," answered her mother. "These foreigners have
cheated me out of half my money by asking me to pay so much for their
wares. They will never take 'no' for an answer. That same boy has been
trying to make me buy that same pair of opera-glasses for three days;
but at last I have found out a sign that will keep him away. I have
seen the others use it," she said with satisfaction.
"What does it mean?" asked Edith curiously.
"It means 'I will not take it at any price,'" said Mrs. Sprague.
Rafael, who had been laughing with great amusement while she gave this
explanation, now said, "This language of signs is very convenient. We
Italians do half our talking by signs."
Edith looked at him and shook her head decidedly. "Just listen!" she
said, pointing to the groups of people gathered along the quay. These
people were all talking in the liveliest manner imaginable, and there
was a great babble of excited voices. Street peddlers were crying
their wares, drivers were cracking their whips, and men in boats, on
the water below, were shouting to each other about the price of fish.
"It is certainly the noisiest city in the world," Edith said; "but it
is also the jolliest. I am going now to the stand where the public
letter-writer sat waiting for customers yesterday. I will let him
write a letter for me."
The three separated and Mrs. Sprague returned to the hotel, while
Rafael went down to the quay to watch the fishermen. The water with
its bustle and stir of life, its coming and going of boats, was like a
breath of home to the boy.
[Illustration: POMPEII AND MOUNT VESUVIUS]