YELLOW BOOTS AND ORANGE BLOSSOMS
NEVER had a knife-play produced such general commotion in Mulberry.
Though the motive for a removal was an affair wherewith outsiders
seldom concerned themselves, the whole colony thirsted in this
distinguished instance to know the wherefore of Bertino’s desire to
have his uncle’s life. This was a tidal wave of opportunity for Sara
the Frier of Pepper Pods, and splendidly she rode upon it to renewed
fortune. For months she had eaten the wormwood of a dishonoured oracle.
She had told the people that rival loves dwelt beneath the roof of Casa
Di Bello, and that some day grand trouble would be the fruit; but as
time wore on and the volcano gave no hint of eruption Sara’s patrons
flung the prophecy in her teeth and bought their fried pepper pods of
an upstart competitor from the Porta del Carmine of Naples. Now she
was able to brush the under side of her chin with the back of her hand
when the aforetime scoffers passed, and ask triumphantly, “Who was
it, my stupid one, that foretold grand trouble in Casa Di Bello?” No
longer could her soothsaying power be doubted, and the morning after
the letting of Signor Di Bello’s blood many an old customer, eager for
news, returned to Sara’s frying pan, which sizzled all day with the
steady rush of trade. In the singsong staccato of Avelino she told all
and much to boot of what she knew touching the great scandal. Who but
she had gone to Signor Di Bello and told him how Bertino had been seen
to kiss the singer, and who but she had seen the stiletto that her
words had caused to gleam in his eye? “But it was the other that played
the knife,” her listeners would observe, critically. This was Sara’s
cue to nod her head mysteriously, say “No matter,” and look wiser than
the plaster cast of Dante that brooded, yellow with age and dusty, in
the window of Signor Sereno the Undertaker. And no more light could
any one in Mulberry shed on the matter, for Juno and Bertino had made
excellent work of guarding the secret of their marriage.
Public interest in the episode declined when, after one day of closure,
the shutters were taken down and business went on as usual at the Sign
of the Wooden Bunch. A new assistant, to take the place of the fugitive
Bertino, was on hand; so was Signor Di Bello, who looked not a hair the
worse for the inexpert carving of which he had been the subject. While
the patrons came and went he sat near the entrance, sprawled in his
low chair, preoccupied, but answering with a grunt the many inquiries
about his health. The etiquette of Mulberry permits no closer reference
than this to removal matters. A subject of vast import and demanding
the grocer’s instant attention had sprouted that morning. It was in a
letter received from Carolina. He had just reached a conclusion--a
fact he betokened by dealing himself a smart slap on the knee--when the
form of Juno appeared between him and the sunshine that poured in at
the shop door.
“Welcome, welcome, my angel!” he cried, springing up, but quickly
pulling a grimace of pain as the wound in the shoulder gave a twinge.
“Ah! what good fortune! You are here, and so am I. See what kind of
a man is Signor Di Bello! To me a knife in the shoulder is a trifle.
Already I am well enough to go with you to the church. Are you ready,
_mia vita_?”
“Wait a few days,” she said, with her frigid calm, “then I will tell
you.”
“_Porco Diavolo!_ Wait, wait! Always wait. I tell you I can not wait.”
“Why?”
“I have my reason.”
“What is it?”
“Ah! _carina_, don’t you know? Well, it is because I can not live
without you.” He said it with his upturned eyes pouring forth a sea
of adoration. Still it was only half the truth. Had he disclosed the
other half he would have told of his sister’s letter saying that she
intended to sail for New York within a week. His spirit had quaked at
the thought of bringing a wife to Casa Di Bello when the redoubtable
Carolina should be on the ground, and the conviction grew upon him that
when the moment came he should not be able to muster the courage needed
for such an enterprise. Wherefore he resolved to wed Juno and plant her
in Casa Di Bello in advance of Carolina’s re-entrance upon the scene.
“You have your reason for not waiting,” she said, impressed not at all
by his amatory demonstration. “Good. I have my reason for waiting.”
She walked out of the shop without saying more, leaving him wondering
if, after all, he were going to lose her. As she made her way through
the hordes of Mulberry she was the target of every eye and tongue. Men
gazed at her in admiration and women pelted her with scornful darts,
because of her proud bearing as well as her coquetry that had set blood
against blood.
“A rogue of a woman,” said a brown daughter of Sicily, fanning the
flies from her naked babe.
“Rather. Who knows what she is or where she came from?”
To all of this and much more Juno moved on in haughty disregard. At the
mouth of the Alley of the Moon she was greeted with profit-receiving
deference by her landlady, Luigia the Garlic Woman, who handed her a
letter. Bertino’s writing! Seated on the bed in her darkling cubicle
upstairs, she read the missive, which was postmarked Jamaica, Long
Island:
CARA JUNO: Did I kill him? Address Post Office, Jamaica, Long Island.
B.
For a moment she sat staring at but not seeing a gaudy print of the
Sistine Madonna that hung in a faint shaft of light. Then she sprang
up and hurried down the narrow staircase to the restaurant. Seated in
the place on the long bench that Signor Di Bello occupied when Bertino
broke up their little meeting, she called for writing materials and
penned these lines:
CARO BERTINO: Your uncle is very low. Will write soon.
J.
As she carried the letter to the red box on the corner her stoical face
gave no token of satisfaction felt by reason of the simple but clean
solution of a vexed problem which Bertino’s letter had supplied. Ten
minutes later she stood in the doorway of Signor Di Bello’s shop.
“Ah, _angelo mio_, welcome again!” was his greeting. Then with an air
of secrecy: “But sh----! sh----! Not a word here. That boy! His ears
are very large and his tongue is long. Every word we said before he
heard. Come, let us go for a promenade.”
They crossed to Paradise Park and mounted the broad staircase to the
pavilion where the band plays, and took seats in a corner apart from
the gabbling women and their swarms of yellow children. Without ado she
came to the point:
“My answer is ready. I will be your wife.”
“Joy!” he cried. “But it must be at once. Within the week. The next
Feast of Sunday.”
“The Feast of Sunday.”
“Ah, what a wedding it shall be! The finest ever seen in Mulberry.
Listen, _mia diletta_, and I will give you my idea. In an open
carriage, with white and purple plumes in the horses’ heads, we shall
go to the Church of San Patrizio. Shall it be San Patrizio or San
Loretto? For me San Patrizio is most agreeable.”
“For me too,” said Juno. “At San Loretto one finds too many Sicilian
pigs.”
“You are right. In the afternoon, then, you wait in the restaurant of
Santa Lucia, all ready in your white gown and orange blossoms. Ah, how
magnificent you will----”
“Bah!” she interrupted. “White gown and orange blossoms! Where do you
think I am to get them? Let me tell you something, signore: I am poor.”
“By the chains of Colombo, then, I am not!” he exclaimed jubilantly.
“You shall have them, and the finest in all Grand Street. Here, see
what kind of a man your promised spouse is!”
From an inside pocket of his waistcoat he drew a large calfskin wallet
bound about many times with stout cord, and took from the plenteous
store therein one ten-dollar note. This he handed to Juno with a proud
“There my angel.”
“Thank you,” she said faintly, turning over the bill.
“And yellow boots you shall have,” he went on; “just like the ones
Signorina Crotelli had last Sunday. I saw them when she and Pietro went
up the church steps. Which do you like best, yellow or white boots?”
“I think yellow boots for a bride are very sympathetic,” she answered,
folding the bank note and tying it in a corner of her handkerchief. And
without a moment’s delay she set off for Grand Street, where the flower
of Mulberry does its shopping.
Two hours afterward, her arms heaped with bundles, and every cent of
the ten dollars gone, she appeared in the kitchen of her landlady and
shocked her with tidings of the nuptials so near at hand.
“Body of the Serpent!” remarked the Garlic Woman. “In the morning you
are a woman without hope, and in the evening you come back the promised
wife of a rich signore.”
While she shook her head in doubt and suspicion, Juno spread out many
yards of purple satin, white lace and pink lining, a wreath of muslin
orange blossoms that should give no poisonous odour, a pair of white
stockings, and--the sympathetic yellow boots. As the bent crone gazed
at the finery her zincky visage lost the hard cast put upon it by a
lifetime of penny-splitting bargain and sale. A tender light filled
her eye, and she lived again in the sweet days of her youth. Where
was the soldier boy that her girlish heart loved? Where the dashing
_Bersagliere_ that led her to church in the mountain village? A great
mound in northern Africa--the tomb of a whole regiment--could answer.
Across the mind of Juno there flashed a thought of her husband and
the crime upon which she was about to enter, but the next instant
it perished as she snatched up the purple satin to preserve it from
danger, for old Luigia had stained it with a tear.
They plied their needles early and late, and when the Feast of Sunday
dawned Juno was ready for the church. All Mulberry knew of the great
event in preparation, and made high store of attending the ceremony
at the altar; but only the first families of the Torinesi, Milanesi,
and Genovesi, and the upper lights of the Calabriani, the Siciliani,
and the Napolitani were bidden to the feast at Casa Di Bello. When
Angelica received the command to make ready this feast, she declared
to Signor Di Bello that a malediction had fallen on the house. To this
he returned only a stout guffaw. It was a terrible blow to the cook,
who was in full accord with Carolina’s policy of a closed door to
wives. Many months she had longed for the return of her mistress, lest
this very calamity might betide during her absence. O poor Signorina
Carolina! To come back just too late to keep out the Napolitana--the
baggage above all others against whom she wished to close the door.
She knew it, she knew it! In her dreams she had seen Juno the Superb
queening it over her in the kitchen, ordering more garlic in this, more
red pepper in that, and making everything fit only for Neapolitan pigs
to eat. Maria have mercy, but she must obey. So, taking up her big
basket, she had gone forth to market, with face long and voice doleful,
and poured into the eager ears of Sara the Frier of Pepper Pods and the
group of raven heads always about her, the story of the dreadful rush
going on to plant in Casa Di Bello the woman whom Carolina had crossed
the seas to keep out.
Though a stone of composure in all the other turns that her adventuring
course had taken, Juno lost her calm a little in the haste and flurry
of constructing the nuptial gown. As an effect she failed until the
last moment to discharge a duty very needful to the success of her
plans. The oversight did not occur to her until Sunday afternoon, at
the moment when she was seated in the chair of Chiara the Hair Comber,
receiving the marvellous wedding _coiffure_ for which that artist was
famous. The hair dressing accomplished, Juno lost no time in going to
the restaurant and penning these words, taking great care with the
spelling, and making sure that the address, “Post Office, Jamaica, Long
Island,” should be correct:
DEAR BERTINO: Your uncle died to-day. Fly from America. The
man-hunters are after you!
J.
Then she put on the gorgeous purple gown, and called the Garlic Woman to
button the yellow boots. And while the bells of San Patrizio pealed,
and the people, dressed in their Sunday clothes, moved toward the
church gates, Juno waited--waited for the open carriage with its plumed
horses that should bear her to the altar with Signor Di Bello.