THE WONDERERS
It was simply pouring sunlight when the Wonderers set off next morning.
They started early, for as they all agreed, luncheon time in Rome comes
sooner than anywhere else.
They went in a large omnibus sort of affair which held them all.
Snippy accompanied them, for the simple reason that she wouldn’t remain
behind; but as she was a most amiable person, except when reprimanding
her young charge, nobody objected to her presence.
Milly Mills was the only unwelcome member of the party. It did seem
as if that girl was never in a good humour. If it looked cloudy, she
feared rain; if the sun shone, it hurt her eyes. The omnibus was too
jolty, too shut-in, too slow-going. Nothing pleased her and she pleased
nobody. But Patty felt sorry for the girl, for she really had no one
to take her about, so it was decided that she was to go with the
Wonderers whenever she chose. The young men politely tried to entertain
her, but she met their advances with a cold negligence, or a sharp
retort, and thus discouraged their well-meant efforts.
But the irrepressible gaiety of the others could not be seriously
impaired by one unhappy nature, so the fun and chatter went gaily on as
the old vehicle lumbered along.
“Of course,” said Lancaster, “if this chariot _should_ follow the
example of the One-hoss Shay, and go to pieces all at once, I suppose
we could walk the rest of the way.”
“The rest of the way to where?” asked his sister.
“Why, to wherever we’re going. Where _are_ we going, anyway?”
“We’re going to St. Peter’s,” said Patty, firmly. “I’m president, and
that’s my decree.”
“Presidents don’t make decrees,” said Flo; “you sound more like a Roman
Emperor. But I’d as lieve go to St. Peter’s as anywhere.”
“You’re a careless lot,” said Peter Homer, “now I’ll be the
director-in-chief of this expedition, and we’ll go first to the Church
of the Capuchins.”
“_What_ for?” said Milly Mills, so suddenly that Patty fairly jumped.
Milly had a queer little habit of saying “What for?” with a strong
emphasis on the “what,” and the aggressive way in which she fairly
exploded the words always annoyed Patty.
But Mr. Homer answered Milly very gently, and said:
“To see some mural decorations that I’m sure you will enjoy for their
oddity and strange effects.”
“I hate mural paintings,” said Milly, in a resigned tone, as if her
wishes made little difference, as indeed was the case.
“But these aren’t paintings.”
“Oh, stucco, I suppose. Well, that’s worse.”
“But these aren’t stucco,” said Peter, smiling in spite of himself at
Milly’s unreasonable crossness.
“No, they’re stuck on,” said Floyd Austin, and Peter added, “Yes, sort
of appliqué work.”
“What are they?” asked Patty, her interest aroused by the smile in
Peter’s eyes.
“Wait till you get there, and you’ll see.”
“If we ever _do_ get there, alive,” said Lank, as the stage rumbled
over a bit of bad road and swayed sideways.
“Is there danger?” cried Milly, in dismay.
“There’s always danger in Rome,” returned Peter.
“I say,” broke in Floyd, “do you remember, any of you, Rollo’s very
excellent rule about dangers?”
“No,” said Patty. “What was it?”
“I don’t remember myself. But when I was a little chap, I used to love
‘Rollo in Rome,’ and one of those page headings was just those words:
‘Rollo’s excellent rule about dangers.’ Now, if we only remembered it,
we could put it to use.”
“I know it,” said Milly, smiling for the first time that morning.
“You do! Good, the country is safe! Tell it to us.”
“Why, you know, that funny Mr. George was going about with Rollo, and
he told him not to go too near the edge of some place. So Rollo said,
‘You may go as near as you think safe, Mr. George, and I will keep back
an inch from where you go.’ ‘Very well,’ said Mr. George.”
“Right you are!” said Floyd, “that’s it! But I suppose it doesn’t
apply to this case exactly. However it’s splendid to remember if we’re
in the right sort of danger at any time. Don’t you just love Rollo,
anyway?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Milly, brightening, “and Mr. George too; he was so
indulgent. He always said ‘Very well,’ no matter what Rollo wanted to
do.”
“I’m not like that,” declared Peter Homer. “I expect you all to say
‘Very well,’ to whatever I want to do. So first we’ll go in here to the
Capuchin Church. Alight, everybody.”
Their lumbering vehicle stopped, and they all went into the old church.
Its unadorned and unattractive exterior made Patty wonder why they came
there, and the interior was not much more interesting.
Mr. Homer made his little band of Wonderers pause while a monk drew
aside a curtain and revealed Guido Reni’s famous painting of “St.
Michael and the Enemy.”
They all enjoyed the short description Mr. Homer gave them of this
picture, and then they went on through the small side chapels and
downstairs to see the decorated walls of which Peter had spoken.
When Patty saw what the decorations were composed of, she could
scarcely believe her eyes. Room after room they went through, and on
each wall and ceiling were elaborate and intricate patterns, worked out
in human bones.
The party was conducted by a Capuchin monk, who walked ahead and
pointed out the curious details.
The monk wore a long brown robe with a cowl, and a rope about his waist.
Patty thought he looked sad, and she said so to Mr. Homer.
“Monks always look sad,” he replied, “it’s part of their costume.”
As the monk could speak no English, he told them about the bones in
Italian, and Peter Homer translated for the benefit of the others.
“He says,” said Peter, “that all these decorations you see on walls
and ceilings are the bones of four thousand monks, who have in the
past belonged to this monastery. The designs are called mosaics, but,
properly, they are appliquéd patterns.”
The Wonderers gazed in real wonder at the strange effects. Just such
designs as would be used to adorn a painted or gilded salon were here
carried out in bones. Long arm or leg bones, radiating from a centre,
formed a conventional star; rosettes were made of rings of overlapping
shoulder-blades; and delicate traceries were woven of ribs and smaller
bones.
Or there would be a frieze of skulls, interspersed with geometrical
figures made with hundreds of finger joints, and collar-bones.
Here and there, in a niche, was a complete skeleton, in a mouldering
robe so old that it scarce hung together. Sometimes these skeleton
monks reclined in a recess lined with skulls and bones.
It was all most curious, and though somewhat gruesome, Patty was
fascinated at the strange sight.
“Ask him if he likes it,” she said to Peter, and when asked, he
answered at great length, and very earnestly.
“What does he say?” asked Patty, impatiently.
“He declares,” said Peter, “that to be used in this decorative way is
the greatest honour a Capuchin monk can have. To gain it, a monk must
have been in the monastery for twenty-five years, and he’s awfully
afraid he’ll die before he earns his right to be a fresco.”
“Ugh!” said Milly, with a shiver, “I hate it! Let’s go out into the
sunlight.”
So Milly and Violet, with one or two of the others, went on out of the
crypts, but Patty lingered to see a little more of the strange cemetery.
“I suppose the whole gentlemen are more honoured than the dissected
ones,” she said.
“Yes,” said Floyd, “and they seem all broken up about it!”
“Don’t jest,” said Patty. “I think it’s very impressive and
interesting. Oh, look at that lamp!”
A hanging lamp swung from the ceiling, and the bowl of it was made of
skulls surrounded by vertebræ, while the chain-like suspension was made
of many femurs, fastened end to end.
“I simply must have postcards of these,” said Flo, and they asked the
grave monk if they might buy them.
Apparently he had never heard of postcards, for Peter could not make
him understand. At last he offered them photographs, and they all
bought some. Afterward they did find some postcards, but it was at
an outside shop, and the monk, who never went outside his restricted
limits, knew nothing of them.
“That’s the most wonderful thing I’ve seen yet!” said Patty, as they
returned to their lumbering old carryall.
“I think it’s terrible,” said Milly; “don’t let’s talk about it!”
So out of deference to their somewhat difficult member, they dropped
the subject, but Patty never forgot the Capuchin monks who approve of
such a strange way of venerating their dead.
To St. Peter’s they went next. Mr. Homer hustled them all out of the
stage before they entered the Piazza, saying they must fasten a picture
of it in their memory.
“You can’t see the best view of the church if you’re close to it,”
he said. “Stand here,” and he paused before they entered the great
colonnaded circle.
And there he made them stand, for fully five minutes, without speaking,
while they photographed the scene on their mind.
“Isn’t he great?” whispered Patty to Flo, as they were released, and
allowed to go forward.
“Yes, indeed. I never saw anyone who knows so well how to make
sight-seeing instructive, without being a bore.”
“Inside the church,” said Peter, as they were about to enter, “you may
wander and wonder as you please. I’ve no word to say, for it’s too big
to talk about as a whole, and we haven’t time now to discuss its parts.
So look about you as you like, and crane your necks up at the dome, or
admire the frantic allegories on the walls, as you prefer.”
“I want to see St. Peter’s statue,” said Patty, “but I don’t want to
kiss his toe.”
“Here it is,” said Homer, leading her to the great bronze statue. As
they looked at it, many visitors approached, and kissed the bronze toe,
which, owing to the height of the pedestal is just about at the level
of a person’s head.
Invariably the devotee wiped off the toe with his handkerchief, before
setting his lips to the sacred shrine, and Patty was amazed to find, on
a closer inspection, that the great bronze toe was nearly all worn away.
“But it isn’t worn by the kisses,” said Patty; “it’s worn by the
handkerchiefs!”
“That’s true,” said Peter; “and it’s a good plan to use a handkerchief,
but I think it’s a better plan to omit the osculation entirely.”
“So do I,” agreed Patty, “but what a lot of people have dabbed at it to
wear away that solid bronze!”
“They have indeed. Now I’ll show you some of the other statues.”
They paused before several of the best sculptures, and Mr. Homer told
their history in a short, simple way. Patty enjoyed it all, and even
Milly seemed to be interested. The others staid to listen, or drifted
away and came wandering back, as the fancy took them.
Perhaps Snippy appreciated Mr. Homer’s talk more than any of the
others, for she was well versed in artistic lore, but she remained
quietly in the background, and let the young people chatter by
themselves. As they left the church, they found it had turned cloudy,
and the sky showed decided appearance of almost immediate rain.
“Just the thing!” cried Mr. Homer. “I’ve been waiting for a good
shower. Jump into the ’bus.”
They scrambled in, thinking they were about to return to the hotel, but
Peter told the driver to go to the Pantheon.
“Why, it’s going to rain,” said Patty.
“I know it; that’s why we’re going to the Pantheon. Its roof leaks.”
“What _are_ you talking about?”
“Just what I say. Have you been to the Pantheon?”
“No, not yet. Why?”
“Well, as you perhaps know, it’s open at the top. There’s a hole
twenty-six feet across, and as the Pantheon has no umbrella, it rains
in.”
Milly was laughing to herself at this conversation.
“What are you giggling at?” said Patty, a bit surprised to see Milly
amused.
“Why,” said Milly, “that’s exactly what Rollo did. As soon as it began
to rain he flew to the Pantheon to see it rain in!”
“I didn’t know that,” said Peter, smiling. “I fear I am sadly deficient
in my ‘Rollo,’ but it is really a good plan to fly to the Pantheon when
it rains, for it’s not always easy to get such an opportunity.”
After they reached the Pantheon, and were inside, Patty understood why
it was a desirable thing to do.
It was a sudden and very hard shower, and the strange effect of the
rain coming in at the open skylight was curious indeed.
The only opening in the Pantheon, save the entrance door, is the large
round hole at the top of its domed roof. This is open to the sky, and
sunlight and rain alike come in.
Many people stood round the edges of the circular church, but the
centre of the floor was wet with the driving rain. So swift were the
drops that they spattered up again as they struck the stone floor, and
it was like hundreds of tiny fountains. But save for the wet circle on
the floor, the place was dry and pleasant. They looked at the various
tombs and monuments, and then inscribed their names in the book which
is there for that purpose.
“It’s wonderful,” said Patty, gazing reverently around the great room
as they were leaving, “but I should think they would have a canopy of
some sort over that hole in the ceiling.”
“They did,” said Peter, “but the shutter, or whatever it was, is lost,
and has never been replaced.”
“Why not, I wonder,” said Patty.
“I wonder,” said Peter.
It was their good fortune that the shower was but a short one, and when
they reached the street again the rain had stopped, and soon after the
sun shone once more.
“I’m glad we had that opportunity,” said Patty; “for it almost never
rains in Rome, and I shall always remember that circular shower.”
“Now,” said Flo, “mayn’t we go to a shop before we go home?”
“_What_ for?” said Milly.
“Trinkets,” replied Flo. “I’m making a memory chain.”
“A what?” said Patty, eagerly, for it sounded attractive.
“Why, you get a chain,” explained Flo, “a slender silver one, you know;
and then you get all sorts of little jigs to hang on it.”
“Jigs?”
“Yes; little carved ivory elephants and monkeys; little silver things
of all sorts, or bronze or wood, or anything. Come on into a shop and
I’ll show you. Mr. Homer, you must know the right kind of shop, don’t
you?”
“I think so,” he said; “but, Miss Mills, where did Rollo go, for this
purpose?”
“I don’t think he made a ‘memory chain,’” said Milly, pleased to be
consulted; “but the description of his shopping for a Roman sash is
very funny.”
Patty secretly wondered if Milly had ever read any other book beside
“Rollo,” but she realised that she didn’t yet know the girl, and indeed
she wasn’t easy to get acquainted with.
Peter took them to a fascinating little shop, where there were all
sorts of tiny wares, at prices not exorbitant; and the girls all bought
trinkets for memory chains.
“Don’t get too many at once,” said Flo to Patty. “You know you must
buy some in Florence or Venice, or wherever you go. Get something
appropriate to the city,--if you can.”
Patty bought a little silver cat, for she said she remembered seeing
cats all over the Forum and Coliseum; and especially in Trajan’s Forum.
Then she bought a tiny column, and a little model of the Arch of
Constantine, and several others.
The men didn’t seem to want memory chains, but they each bought a tiny
trinket to carry as a pocket-piece, as a memento of the Wonderers’
Club.