Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Josephine
Paolucci, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
CHICO
THE STORY OF A HOMING PIGEON
By LUCY M. BLANCHARD
The Riverside Literature Series
1922
DEDICATED TO ALL WHO LOVE VENICE
FOREWORD
As is well known, the time for haphazard reading in the schools has passed.
The carefully selected lists compiled by those who make the education of
children their life work are adapted to the needs of every grade.
It is not enough that a book possess story interest and that it be worth
while from a literary point of view. The great consideration is its
influence upon the mental and moral development of the child. It must be
stimulating and present to the pupil such ideals as will have a permanent
influence upon the formation of character.
In CHICO, THE STORY OF A HOMING PIGEON, I believe present-day requirements
have been met, and that the book will prove of real value as a
supplementary reader in the primary grades.
It has been my aim to depict accurately the Italian atmosphere and to give
information in such a way that children unconsciously will learn much of
the country form a true idea of the scenes described.
Explanations of Italian words and phrases have been given when needed.
I believe that the book will be found particularly valuable from the
standpoint of visual education, and well adapted also for silent reading
and topical recitations.
The story was written out of a full heart, with the hope that it might
foster the love and appreciation of birds, and that the boy's sacrifice of
his precious homing pigeon to his country at a time of peril might carry an
ethical appeal to every young reader.
THE AUTHOR
CONTENTS
I. OLD PAOLO
II. ANDREA'S WISH
III. MARIA'S BIRTHDAY
IV. CHICO
V. THE MEANEST CAT IN VENICE
VI. TRAINING
VII. DANGER AHEAD!
VIII. A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE
IX. "COO-OO, COO-OO-OO. RUK-AT-A-COO"
X. A GALA DAY
XI. A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE WORLD
XII. THE BLUE ROSETTE
XIII. AND ALL FOR ITALY!
XIV. EVVIVA VENEZIA! EVVIVA ITALIA!
XV. THE HERO OF THE SQUARE
[Illustration: CHICO]
CHAPTER I
OLD PAOLO
Some years before the Great War, there lived in a little house on one of
the side canals of Venice, an honest workman and his family. Giovanni
Minetti, for such was his name, was employed in a certain glass factory in
Murano, while, in all Venice, there was no one with fingers more deft in
the making of beautiful lace than Luisa, his wife.
At the time of our story, Andrea, the elder child, was nearly eight, and
his little sister, Maria, two years younger.
Consigning the children to the care of her uncle (old Paolo, the caretaker
of St. Mark's), Luisa would go each morning to the lace factory, returning
just in time to prepare the simple dinner, at eventide.
Those were wonderful days for the children, for though they missed their
father and mother, they were always happy with old Paolo.
"Buon giorno" [Footnote: Good-morning.] they would shout every morning when
he stopped for them on his way to the famous church, and Maria, holding
tight to one of the old man's hands, would trot along by his side, while
Andrea, more independent, would run on ahead in his eagerness to thread the
narrow streets catch the first glimpse of the Piazza, as St. Mark's Square
is called.
Then, while the old man cleaned and dusted, the children wandered about
the dusky interior, touching the gold mosaic figures with awed fingers, or
gazing reverently at the great altar front of silver gilt.
After a little, hand in hand, they would scamper out into the bright
sunshine where they never tired of the many wonderful objects that make St.
Mark's Square a fairyland for young and old alike.
"'Roglo!" little Maria would cry, as she pointed upward to the great clock
with its dial of blue and gold. It was the nearest she could come to
pronouncing "orologio," the Italian word for clock. Then she would listen
as hard as ever she could, hoping the bronze figures would strike the hour
on the bell.
But Andrea loved best the horses that stood above the entrance of the
church. In his little soul he almost worshiped the fiery steeds and loved
to fancy himself seated on their backs. He even went so far as to plan to
scale the wall in order to satisfy his ambition.
"Sometime, I will do it," he used to say, as he struck a determined
attitude, and Maria would look at him with adoring eyes. How venturesome he
was! He was taller than she by half a head, and his added two years gave
him a place in dignity far above her.
It was no wonder the boy should be so crazy over the great bronze steeds
when one remembers that Venice is practically horseless and that they were
almost the only ones he had ever seen.
Perchance, even, as they talked, they would hear the flutter of wings, and
some half-dozen pigeons, with soft coos, would light on their shoulders.
Then Maria would laugh aloud with delight, and Andrea would forget his wild
dreams as they stroked the glossy wings and admired the bright eyes, all
the while feeding them dried peas or grain with which their mother never
forgot to see their pockets were supplied.
If, by chance, they flung a handful on the ground, in a second there would
be a whole flock of pigeons, lighting on the pavement.
Then Maria would clap her hands, and Andrea would have all he could do to
see that no bird, greedier than the rest, got more than its share.
The children would be so absorbed that they would become quite unconscious
of the tourists that would gather to watch the pretty group, for Venice was
full of tourists in those days--people who came, even from far-off America,
to see the wonderful St. Mark's Square, and hard-hearted, indeed, was the
man or woman who could turn away without buying at least one bag of grain
from insistent vendors and join the children in feeding the pigeons.
But I have not yet begun to tell the wonders of St. Mark's Square. This was
in June, 1910; the Campanile was being built to replace the old one that
had fallen in 1902, and to little Maria and Andrea, there was a fascination
in watching the workmen lift the great stones into place from the confused
debris at its base.
If the Piazza was wonderful, so, too, was the piazzetta with the Ducal
Palace with the golden staircase and the two columns, the one surmounted
by the winged lion of St. Mark, the other by St. Theodore, standing on a
crocodile.
Sometimes, after having wandered to the edge of the Grand Canal and looked
away to the blue dome of the church of Maria della Salute, they would run
back to the Square and, hand in hand, go window-wishing among the shops
that line its sides. No one who has never seen these shops of Venice can
form any conception of how fascinating they are with their strands of
glittering beads or yards upon yards of marvelous laces.
Often Andrea would exclaim, as they flattened their noses against the
glass, "When I am a man, I will work in the glass factory as my father
does, and, perhaps, who knows, I shall discover some new glaze which shall
make all the world amazed?" He had never forgotten the day when his father
had taken him to the factory and shown him the molten glaze and the workmen
blowing the glass into marvelous shapes. That day he had decided upon his
future career.
But little Maria cared more for the laces, and would shyly point to some
especially beautiful piece and say softly:
"Perhaps, it was the madre who made that."
Once she followed an American woman into the shop and stood by her side
watching her bargain for an exquisite collar. So intently she looked that
the woman turned and met her gaze, remarking to her companion:
"Even the children have it in them--I mean the love for beautiful things;
and did you see her fingers?--any one could tell they were meant for
lace-making."
Sometimes the children lingered so long in this way that the bronze figures
would strike twelve, and they would have to hurry back so as not to keep
old Paolo waiting for his noonday lunch.
Then, in some little recess around the corner of the church, with countless
pigeons waiting for the crumbs, they would sit with him, sharing his frugal
meal. When they had finished, he would sometimes take them for a ride in
his shabby gondola on the Grand Canal, and on the way they would beg to
stop for just a moment at the famous well with two porphyry lions. Andrea
was tall enough to clamber by himself after the manner of young Venetians,
and nothing would do but Paolo must lift Maria, so she, too, would proudly
straddle one of the fierce figures. There they would sit while the old
caretaker would count the pigeons bathing and splashing in the water.
But, better than anything else, the children liked to snuggle close to
their companion while he told them wonderful stories until it was time for
him to go back to work.
While they watched with fascinated eyes, he would trace a diagram in the
pavement to show how the Grand Canal, in its wanderings, exactly describes
the letter "S." His eyes would glow as he told of the grandeur of Venice
in the time of the Doges, or cause the children to shudder at gruesome
accounts of how, in the olden time, the prisoners were thrown from the
Bridge of Sighs, into the water below.
Perchance, he would tell of the wedding of the Adriatic and call Venice the
Bride of the Sea, or give a vivid account of how the body of St. Mark was
brought there in the long ago.
In fact, his tales were so realistic, that it almost seemed as if he must
have been an eyewitness of every incident he narrated.