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THE
FRONT YARD
AND
OTHER
ITALIAN STORIES
CONSTANCE
FENIMORE
WOOLSON
[Illustration: image of the book's cover]
[Illustration:
Page 202
"'MADEMOISELLE NEED GIVE HERSELF NO UNEASINESS'"]
THE FRONT YARD
AND
OTHER ITALIAN STORIES
BY
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
AUTHOR OF "ANNE" "HORACE CHASE" ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration: colophon]
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1895
Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
NOTE
Of the stories contained in this volume, "In Venice" was originally
published in the _Atlantic Monthly_, "The Street of the Hyacinth" in the
_Century Magazine_, and the other four stories in _Harper's Magazine_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE FRONT YARD 1
NEPTUNE'S SHORE 50
A PINK VILLA 91
THE STREET OF THE HYACINTH 137
A CHRISTMAS PARTY 194
IN VENICE 234
ILLUSTRATIONS
"'MADEMOISELLE NEED GIVE HERSELF NO UNEASINESS'" _Frontispiece_
"''TWOULD BE SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE THE DAY
WITH, THAT WOULD'" _Facing p._ 2
"NOUNCE TOO CAME OUT, AND SAT ON THE WALL NEAR
BY, LISTENING" " 22
"STILL HOLDING NOUNCE'S HAND, SHE WENT ROUND TO
THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE" " 42
"'YOU KNOW I AM YOUR SLAVE'" " 58
AZUBAH ASH " 68
THE OLD WATCH-TOWER " 86
"THE CART WAS GOING SLOWLY ACROSS THE FIELDS,
FOR THE ROAD WAS OVERFLOWED" " 88
"'MRS. CHURCHILL, LET ME PRESENT TO YOU MR. DAVID
ROD'" " 100
SORRENTO " 102
ON THE WAY TO THE DESERTO " 112
AT THE DESERTO " 114
"SHE SAT DOWN AND GATHERED HER CHILD TO HER
BREAST" " 128
"FANNY PUT OUT HER HANDS WITH A BITTER CRY" " 134
"A SMALL CHILD PERCHED ON EACH OF HIS SHOULDERS" " 214
THE FRONT YARD
"Well, now, with Gooster at work in the per-dairy, and Bepper settled at
last as help in a good family, and Parlo and Squawly gone to Perugia,
and Soonter taken by the nuns, and Jo Vanny learning the carpenter's
trade, and only Nounce left for me to see to (let alone Granmar, of
course, and Pipper and old Patro), it doos seem, it really doos, as if I
might get it done _sometime_; say next Fourth of July, now; that's only
ten months off. 'Twould be something to celebrate the day with, that
would; something like!"
The woman through whose mind these thoughts were passing was sitting on
a low stone-wall, a bundle of herbs, a fagot of twigs, and a sickle laid
carefully beside her. On her back was strapped a large deep basket,
almost as long as herself; she had loosened the straps so that she could
sit down. This basket was heavy; one could tell that from the relaxed
droop of her shoulders relieved from its weight for the moment, as its
end rested on a fallen block on the other side of the wall. Her feet
were bare, her dress a narrow cotton gown, covered in front to the hem
by a dark cotton apron; on her head was a straw bonnet, which had behind
a little cape of brown ribbon three inches deep, and in front broad
strings of the same brown, carefully tied in a bow, with the loops
pulled out to their full width and pinned on each side of her chin.
This bonnet, very clean and decent (the ribbons had evidently been
washed more than once), was of old-fashioned shape, projecting beyond
the wearer's forehead and cheeks. Within its tube her face could be
seen, with its deeply browned skin, its large irregular features,
smooth, thin white hair, and blue eyes, still bright, set amid a bed of
wrinkles. She was sixty years old, tall and broad-shouldered. She had
once been remarkably erect and strong. This strength had been consumed
more by constant toil than by the approach of old age; it was not all
gone yet; the great basket showed that. In addition, her eyes spoke a
language which told of energy that would last as long as her breath.
These eyes were fixed now upon a low building that stood at a little
distance directly across the path. It was small and ancient, built of
stone, with a sloping roof and black door. There were no windows;
through this door entered the only light and air. Outside were two large
heaps of refuse, one of which had been there so long that thick matted
herbage was growing vigorously over its top. Bars guarded the entrance;
it was impossible to see what was within. But the woman knew without
seeing; she always knew. It had been a cow; it had been goats; it had
been pigs, and then goats again; for the past two years it had been pigs
steadily--always pigs. Her eyes were fixed upon this door as if held
there by a magnet; her mouth fell open a little as she gazed; her hands
lay loose in her lap. There was nothing new in the picture, certainly.
But the intensity of her feeling made it in one way always new. If love
wakes freshly every morning, so does hate, and Prudence Wilkin had
hated that cow-shed for years.
[Illustration: "''TWOULD BE SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE THE DAY WITH, THAT
WOULD'"]
The bells down in the town began to ring the Angelus. She woke from her
reverie, rebuckled the straps of the basket, and adjusting it by a jerk
of her shoulders in its place on her back, she took the fagot in one
hand, the bundle of herbs in the other, and carrying the sickle under
her arm, toiled slowly up the ascent, going round the cow-shed, as the
interrupted path too went round it, in an unpaved, provisional sort of
way (which had, however, lasted fifty years), and giving a wave of her
herbs towards the offending black door as she passed--a gesture that was
almost triumphant. "Jest you wait till next Fourth of July, you indecent
old Antiquity, you!" This is what she was thinking.
Prudence Wilkin's idea of Antiquity was everything that was old and
dirty; indecent Antiquity meant the same qualities increased to a degree
that was monstrous, a degree that the most profligate imagination of
Ledham (New Hampshire) would never have been able to conceive. There was
naturally a good deal of this sort of Antiquity in Assisi, her present
abode; it was all she saw when she descended to that picturesque town;
the great triple church of St. Francis she never entered; the
magnificent view of the valley, the serene vast Umbrian plain, she never
noticed; but the steep, narrow streets, with garbage here and there, the
crowding stone houses, centuries old, from whose court-yard doors issued
odors indescribable--these she knew well, and detested with all her
soul. Her deepest degree of loathing, however, was reserved for the
especial Antiquity that blocked her own front path, that elbowed her own
front door, this noisome stable or sty--for it was now one, now the
other--which she had hated and abhorred for sixteen long years.
For it was just sixteen years ago this month since she had first entered
the hill town of St. Francis. She had not entered it alone, but in the
company of a handsome bridegroom, Antonio Guadagni by name, and so happy
was she that everything had seemed to her enchanting--these same steep
streets with their ancient dwellings, the same dirt, the same
yellowness, the same continuous leisure and causeless beatitude. And
when her Tonio took her through the town and up this second ascent to
the squalid little house, where, staring and laughing and crowding
nearer to look at her, she found his family assembled, innumerable
children (they seemed innumerable then), a bedridden grandam, a
disreputable old uncle (who began to compliment her), even this did not
appear a burden, though of course it was a surprise. For Tonio had told
her, sadly, that he was "all alone in the world." It had been one of the
reasons why she had wished to marry him--that she might make a home for
so desolate a man.
The home was already made, and it was somewhat full. Desolate Tonio
explained, with shouts of laughter, in which all the assemblage joined,
that seven of the children were his, the eighth being an orphan nephew
left to his care; his wife had died eight months before, and this was
her grandmother--on the bed there; this her good old uncle, a very
accomplished man, who had written sonnets. Mrs. Guadagni number two had
excellent powers of vision, but she was never able to discover the
goodness of this accomplished uncle; it was a quality which, like the
beneficence of angels, one is obliged to take on trust.
She was forty-five, a New England woman, with some small savings, who
had come to Italy as companion and attendant to a distant cousin, an
invalid with money. The cousin had died suddenly at Perugia, and
Prudence had allowed the chance of returning to Ledham with her effects
to pass by unnoticed--a remarkable lapse of the quality of which her
first name was the exponent, regarding which her whole life hitherto had
been one sharply outlined example. This lapse was due to her having
already become the captive of this handsome, this irresistible, this
wholly unexpected Tonio, who was serving as waiter in the Perugian inn.
Divining her savings, and seeing with his own eyes her wonderful
strength and energy, this good-natured reprobate had made love to her a
little in the facile Italian way, and the poor plain simple-hearted
spinster, to whom no one had ever spoken a word of gallantry in all her
life before, had been completely swept off her balance by the novelty of
it, and by the thronging new sensations which his few English words, his
speaking dark eyes, and ardent entreaties roused in her maiden breast.
It was her one moment of madness (who has not had one?). She married
him, marvelling a little inwardly when he required her to walk to
Assisi, but content to walk to China if that should be his pleasure.
When she reached the squalid house on the height and saw its crowd of
occupants, when her own money was demanded to send down to Assisi to
purchase the wedding dinner, then she understood--why they had walked.
But she never understood anything else. She never permitted herself to
understand. Tonio, plump and idle, enjoyed a year of paradisiacal
opulence under her ministrations (and in spite of some of them); he was
eighteen years younger than she was; it was natural that he should wish
to enjoy on a larger scale than hers--so he told her. At the end of
twelve months a fever carried him off, and his widow, who mourned for
him with all her heart, was left to face the world with the eight
children, the grandmother, the good old uncle, and whatever courage she
was able to muster after counting over and over the eighty-five dollars
that alone remained to her of the six hundred she had brought him.
Of course she could have gone back to her own country. But that idea
never once occurred to her; she had married Tonio for better or worse;
she could not in honor desert the worst now that it had come. It had
come in force; on the very day of the funeral she had been obliged to
work eight hours; on every day that had followed through all these
years, the hours had been on an average fourteen; sometimes more.
Bent under her basket, the widow now arrived at the back door of her
home. It was a small narrow house, built of rough stones plastered over
and painted bright yellow. But though thus gay without, it was dark
within; the few windows were very small, and their four little panes of
thick glass were covered with an iron grating; there was no elevation
above the ground, the brick floor inside being of the same level as the
flagging of the path without, so that there was always a sense of
groping when one entered the low door. There were but four rooms, the
kitchen, with a bedroom opening from it, and two chambers above under
the sloping roof.
Prudence unstrapped her basket and placed it in a wood-shed which she
had constructed with her own hands. For she could not comprehend a house
without a wood-shed; she called it a wood-shed, though there was very
little wood to put in it: in Assisi no one made a fire for warmth; for
cooking they burned twigs. She hung up the fagot (it was a fagot of
twigs), the herbs, and the sickle; then, after giving her narrow skirts
a shake, she entered the kitchen.
There was a bed in this room. Granmar would not allow it to be moved
elsewhere; her bed had always been in the kitchen, and in the kitchen it
should remain; no one but Denza, indeed, would wish to shove her off;
Annunziata had liked to have her dear old granmar there, where she could
see for herself that she was having everything she needed; but
Annunziata had been an angel of goodness, as well as of the dearest
beauty; whereas Denza--but any one could see what Denza was! As
Granmar's tongue was decidedly a thing to be reckoned with, her bed
remained where it always had been; from its comfortable cleanliness the
old creature could overlook and criticise to her heart's content the
entire household economy of Annunziata's successor. Not only the
kitchen, but the whole house and garden, had been vigorously purified by
this successor; single-handed she had attacked and carried away
accumulations which had been there since Columbus discovered America.
Even Granmar was rescued from her squalor and coaxed to wear a clean cap
and neat little shawl, her withered brown hands reposing meanwhile upon
a sheet which, though coarse, was spotless.
Granmar was a very terrible old woman; she had a beak-like nose, round
glittering black eyes set in broad circles of yellow wrinkles, no mouth
to speak of, and a receding chin; her voice was now a gruff bass, now a
shrill yell.
"How late you are! you do it on purpose," she said as Prudence entered.
"And me--as haven't had a thing I've wanted since you went away hours
upon hours ago. Nunziata there has been as stupid as a stone--behold
her!"
She spoke in peasant Italian, a tongue which Mrs. Guadagni the second
(called Denza by the family, from Prudenza, the Italian form of her
first name) now spoke readily enough, though after a fashion of her own.
She remained always convinced that Italian was simply lunatic English,
English spoiled. One of the children, named Pasquale, she called
Squawly, and she always believed that the title came from the strength
of his infant lungs; many other words impressed her in the same way.
She now made no reply to Granmar's complaints save to give one
business-like look towards the bed to see whether the pillows were
properly adjusted for the old creature's comfort; then she crossed the
room towards the stove, a large ancient construction of bricks, with two
or three small depressions over which an iron pot could be set.
"Well, Nounce," she said to a girl who was sitting there on a little
bench. The tone of her voice was kindly; she looked to see if a fire had
been made. A few coals smouldered in one of the holes. "Good girl," said
Prudence, commendingly.
"Oh, very good!" cried Granmar from the bed--"very good, when I told her
forty times, and fifty, to make me an omelet, a wee fat one with a drop
of fig in it, and I so faint, and she wouldn't, the snake! she wouldn't,
the toad!--toadest of toads!"
The dark eyes of the girl turned slowly towards Prudence. Prudence, as
she busied herself with the coals, gave her a little nod of approbation,
which Granmar could not see. The girl looked pleased for a moment; then
her face sank into immobility again. She was not an idiot, but wanting,
as it was called; a delicate, pretty young creature, who, with her
cousin Pippo, had been only a year old when the second wife came to
Assisi. It was impossible for any one to be fond of Pippo, who even at
that age had been selfish and gluttonous to an abnormal degree; but
Prudence had learned to love the helpless little girl committed to her
care, as she had also learned to love very dearly the child's brother
Giovanni, who was but a year older; they had been but babies, both of
them. The girl was now seventeen. Her name was Annunziata, but Prudence
called her Nounce. "If it means 'Announce,' Nounce is near enough, I
guess," she said to herself, aggressively. The truth was that she hated
the name; it had belonged to Tonio's first wife, and of the memory of
that comely young mother, poor Prudence, with her sixty years, her white
hair, and wrinkled skin, was burningly jealous even now. Giovanni's name
she pronounced as though it were two words--Jo Vanny; she really thought
there were two. Jo she knew well, of course; it was a good New England
name; Vanny was probably some senseless Italian addition. The name of
the eldest son, Augusto, became on her lips Gooster; Paolo was Parlo,
Assunta was Soonter.
The nuns had finally taken Soonter. The step-mother had been unable to
conceal from herself her own profound relief. True, the girl had gone to
a "papish" convent; but she had always been a mystery in the house, and
the constant presence of a mystery is particularly trying to the New
England mind. Soonter spent hours in meditation; she was very quiet; she
believed that she saw angels; her face wore often a far-away smile.
On this September evening she prepared a heavily abundant supper for
Granmar, and a simple one for Nounce, who ate at any time hardly more
than a bird; Granmar, on the contrary, was gifted with an appetite of
extraordinary capacities, the amount of food which was necessary to keep
her, not in good-humor (she was never in good-humor), but in passable
bodily tranquillity, through the twenty-four hours being equal to that
which would have been required (so Prudence often thought) for three
hearty New England harvesters at home. Not that Granmar would touch New
England food; none of the family would eat the home dishes which
Prudence in the earlier years had hopefully tried to prepare from such
materials as seemed to her the least "onreasonable"; Granmar, indeed,
had declared each and all fit only for the hogs. Prudence never tried
them now, and she had learned the art of Italian cooking; for she felt
that she could not afford to make anything that was to be for herself
alone; the handful of precious twigs must serve for the family as a
whole. But every now and then, in spite of her natural abstemiousness,
she would be haunted by a vision of a "boiled dinner," the boiled
corned-beef, the boiled cabbage, turnips, and potatoes, and the boiled
Indian pudding of her youth. She should never taste these dainties on
earth again. More than once she caught herself hoping that at least the
aroma of them would be given to her some time in heaven.
When Granmar was gorged she became temporarily more tranquil. Prudence
took this time to speak of a plan which she had had in her mind for
several days. "Now that Gooster and the other boys are doing for
themselves, Granmar, and Bepper too at last, and Jo Vanny only needing a
trifle of help now and then (he's so young yet, you know), I feel as
though I might be earning more money," she began.
"Money's a very good thing; we've never had half enough since my sainted
Annunziata joined the angels," responded Granmar, with a pious air.
"Well, it seems a good time to try and earn some more. Soonter's gone to
the convent; and as it's a long while since Pipper's been here, I really
begin to think he has gone off to get work somewhere, as he always said he
was going to."
"Don't you be too sure of Pippo," said Granmar, shaking her owl-like
head ominously.
"'Tany rate he hasn't been here, and I always try to hope the best about
him--"
"And _that's_ what you call the best?" interrupted Granmar, with one of
her sudden flank movements, "to have him gone away off no one knows
where--Annunziata's own precious little nephew--taken by the
pirates--yam! Sold as a slave--yam! Killed in the war! Oh, Pippo! poor
Pippo! poor little Pipp, Pipp, Pipp!"
"And so I thought I'd try to go to the shop by the day," Prudence went
on, when this yell had ceased; "they want me to come and cut out. I
shouldn't go until after your breakfast, of course; and I could leave
cold things out, and Nounce would cook you something hot at noon; then I
should be home myself every night in time to get your supper."
"And so that's the plan--I'm to be left alone here with an idiot while
you go flouncing your heels round Assisi! Flounce, cat! It's a wonder
the dead don't rise in their graves to hear it. But we buried my
Annunziata too deep for that--yam!--otherwise she'd 'a been here to tear
your eyes out. An old woman left to starve alone, her own precious
grandmother, growing weaker and weaker, and pining and pining. Blessed
stomach, do you hear--do you hear, my holy, blessed stomach, always
asking for so little, and now not even to get that? It's turned all a
mumble of cold just thinking of it--yam! I, poor sufferer, who have had
to stand your ugly face so long--I _so_ fond of beauty! You haven't got
but twenty-four hairs now; you know you haven't--yam! I've got more than
you twenty times over--hey! _that_ I have." And Granmar, tearing off her
cap, pulled loose her coarse white hair, and grasping the ends of the
long locks with her crooked fingers, threw them aloft with a series of
shrill halloos.
"I won't go to the shop," said Prudence. "Mercy on us, what a noise! I
say I won't go to the shop. There! do you hear?"
"Will you be here every day of your life at twelve o'clock to cook me
something that won't poison me?" demanded Granmar, still hallooing.
"Yes, yes, I promise you."
Even Granmar believed Prudence's yes; her yea was yea and her nay nay to
all the family. "You cook me something this very minute," she said,
sullenly, putting on her cap askew.
"Why, you've only just got through your supper!" exclaimed Prudence,
astonished, used though she was to Granmar's abdominal capacities, by
this sudden demand.
"You won't? Then I'll yell again," said Granmar. And yell she did.
"Hold up--do; I believe you now," said Prudence. She fanned the dying
coals with a straw fan, made up the fire, and prepared some
griddle-cakes. Granmar demanded fig syrup to eat with them; and devoured
six. Filled to repletion, she then suffered Prudence to change her day
cap for a nightcap, falling asleep almost before her head touched the
pillow.
During this scene Nounce had sat quietly in her corner. Prudence now
went to her to see if she was frightened, for the girl was sometimes
much terrified by Granmar's outcries; she stroked her soft hair. She was
always looking for signs of intelligence in Nounce, and fancying that
she discovered them. Taking the girl's hand, she went with her to the
next room, where were their two narrow pallet beds. "You were very smart
to save the eggs for me to-day when Granmar wanted that omerlet," she
whispered, as she helped her to undress.
Memory came back to Nounce; she smiled comprehendingly.
Prudence waited until she was in bed; then she kissed her good-night,
and put out the candle.
Her two charges asleep, Mrs. Guadagni the second opened the back door
softly and went out. It was not yet nine o'clock, a warm dark night;
though still September, the odors of autumn were already in the air,
coming from the September flowers, which have a pungency mingled with
their perfume, from the rank ripeness of the vegetables, from the aroma
of the ground after the first rains.
"I could have made thirty cents a week more at the shop," she said to
herself, regretfully (she always translated the Italian money into
American or French). "In a month that would have been a dollar and
twenty cents! Well, there's no use thinking about it sence I can't go."
She bent over her vegetables, feeling of their leaves, and estimating
anew how many she could afford to sell, now that the family was so much
reduced in size. Then she paid a visit to her fig-trees. She had planted
these trees herself, and watched over their infancy with anxious care;
at the present moment they were loaded with fruit, and it seemed as if
she knew the position of each fig, so many times had she stood under the
boughs looking up at the slowly swelling bulbs. She had never before
been able to sell the fruit. But now she should be able, and the sale
would add a good many cents to the store of savings kept in her
work-box. This work-box, a possession of her youth, was lined with vivid
green paper, and had a colored lithograph of the Honorable Mrs. Norton
(taken as a Muse) on the inside of the cover; it held already three
francs and a half, that is seventy cents--an excellent sum when one
considered that only three weeks had passed since the happy day when she
had at last beheld the way open to saving regularly, laying by
regularly; many times had she begun to save, but she had never been able
to continue it. Now, with this small household, she should be able to
continue. The sale of the figs would probably double the savings already
in the work-box; she might even get eighty cents for them; and that
would make a dollar and fifty cents in all! A fig fell to the ground.
"They're ripe," she thought; "they must be picked to-morrow." She felt
for the fallen fig in the darkness, and carrying it to the garden wall,
placed it in a dry niche where it would keep its freshness until she
could send it to town with the rest. Then she went to the hen-house.
"Smart of Nounce to save the eggs for me," she thought, laughing
delightedly to herself over this proof of the girl's intelligence.
"Granmar didn't need that omerlet one bit; I left out two tremenjous
lunches for her." She peered in; but could not see the hens in the
darkness. "If Granmar'd only eat the things we do!" her thoughts went
on. "But she's always possessed after everything that takes eggs. And
then she wants the very best coffee, and white sugar, and the best wine,
and fine flour and meal and oil--my! how much oil! But I wonder if _I_
couldn't stop eating something or other, steader pestering myself about
her? Let's see. I don't take wine nor coffee, so I can't stop them; but
I could stop soup meat, just for myself; and I will." Thus meditating,
she went slowly round to the open space before the house.
To call it a space was a misnomer. The house stood at the apex of the
hill, and its garden by right extended as far down the descent in front
as it extended down the opposite descent behind, where Prudence had
planted her long rows of vegetables. But in this front space, not ten
feet distant from the house door, planted directly across the paved path
which came up from below, was the cow-shed, the intruding offensive
neighbor whose odors, gruntings (for it was now a pig-sty), and refuse
were constantly making themselves perceptible to one sense and another
through the open windows of the dwelling behind. For the house had no
back windows; the small apertures which passed for windows were all in
front; in that climate it was impossible that they should be always
closed. How those odors choked Prudence Wilkin! It seemed as if she
could not respect herself while obliged to breathe them, as if she had
not respected herself (in the true Ledham way) since the pig-sty became
her neighbor.
For fifty francs the owners would take it away; for another twenty or
thirty she could have "a front yard." But though she had made many
beginnings, she had never been able to save a tenth of the sum. None of
the family shared her feelings in the least; to spend precious money for
such a whim as that--only an American could be capable of it; but then,
as everybody knew, most Americans were mad. And why should Denza object
to pigs?
Prudence therefore had been obliged to keep her longings to herself. But
this had only intensified them. And now when at last, after thinking of
it for sixteen years, she was free to begin to save daily and regularly,
she saw as in a vision her front yard completed as she would like to
have it: the cow-shed gone; "a nice straight path going down to the
front gate, set in a new paling fence; along the sides currant bushes;
and in the open spaces to the right and left a big flowerin'
shrub--snowballs, or Missouri currant; near the house a clump of
matrimony, perhaps; and in the flower beds on each side of the path
bachelor's-buttons, Chiny-asters, lady's-slippers, and pinks; the edges
bordered with box." She heaved a sigh of deep satisfaction as she
finished her mental review. But it was hardly mental after all; she saw
the gate, she saw the straight path, she saw the currant bushes and the
box-bordered flower beds as distinctly as though they had really been
there.
Cheered, almost joyous, she went within, locking the door behind her;
then, after softly placing the usual store of provisions beside
Granmar's bed (for Granmar had a habit of waking in the night to eat),
she sought her own couch. It was hard, but she stretched herself upon it
luxuriously. "The figs'll double the money," she thought, "and by this
time to-morrow I shall have a dollar and forty cents; mebby a dollar
fifty!" She fell asleep happily.
Her contentment made her sleep soundly. Still it was not long after dawn
when she hurried down the hill to the town to get her supply of work
from the shop. Hastening back with it, she found Granmar clamoring for
her coffee, and Nounce, neatly dressed and clean (for so much Prudence
had succeeded in teaching her), sitting patiently in her corner.
Prudence's mind was full of a sale she had made; but she prepared the
coffee and Nounce's broth with her usual care; she washed her dishes,
and made Granmar tidy for the day; finally she arranged all her sewing
implements on the table by the window beside her pile of work. Now she
could give herself the luxury of one last look, one last estimate; for
she had made a miracle of a bargain for her figs. By ten o'clock the men
would be up to gather them.
It was a hazy morning; butterflies danced before her as she hastened
towards the loaded trees. Reaching them, she looked up. The boughs were
bare. All the figs had been gathered in the night, or at earliest dawn.
"Pipper!" she murmured to herself.
The ground under the trees was trampled.
Seven weeks later, on the 16th of November, this same Prudence was
adding to her secreted store the fifteen cents needed to make the sum
ten francs exactly--that is, two dollars. "Ten francs, a fifth of the
whole! It seems 'most too lucky that I've got on so well, spite of
Pipper's taking the figs. If I can keep along this way, it'll _all_ be
done by the Fourth of July; not just the cow-shed taken away, but the
front yard done too. My!" She sat down on a fagot to think it over. The
thought was rapture; she laughed to herself and at herself for being so
happy.
Some one called, "Mamma." She came out, and found Jo Vanny looking for
her. Nounce and Jo Vanny were the only ones among the children who had
ever called her mother.
"Oh, you're up there in the shed, are you?" said Jo Vanny. "Somehow,
mamma, you look very gay."
"Yes, I'm gay," answered Prudence. "Perhaps some of these days I'll tell
you why." In her heart she thought: "Jo Vanny, now, _he'd_ understand;
he'd feel as I do if I should explain it to him. A nice front yard he
has never seen in all his life, for they don't have 'em _here_. But once
he knew what it was, he'd care about it as much as I do; I know he
would. He's sort of American, anyhow." It was the highest praise she
could give. The boy had his cap off; she smoothed his hair. "'Pears to
me you must have lost your comb," she said.
"I'm going to have it all cut off as short as can be," announced Jo
Vanny, with a resolute air.
"Oh no."
"Yes, I am. Some of the other fellows have had theirs cut that way, and
I'm going to, too," pursued the young stoic.
He was eighteen, rather undersized and slender, handsome as to his face,
with large dark long-lashed eyes, well-cut features, white teeth, and
the curly hair which Prudence had smoothed. Though he had vowed them to
destruction, these love-locks were for the present arranged in the style
most approved in Assisi, one thick glossy flake being brought down low
over the forehead, so that it showed under his cap in a sentimental
wave. He did not look much like a hard-working carpenter as he stood
there dressed in dark clothes made in that singular exaggeration of the
fashions which one sees only in Italy. His trousers, small at the knee,
were large and wing-like at the ankle, half covering the tight shabby
shoes run down at the heel and absurdly short, which, however, as they
were made of patent-leather and sharply pointed at the toes, Jo Vanny
considered shoes of gala aspect. His low flaring collar was surrounded
by a red-satin cravat ornamented by a gilt horseshoe. He wore a ring on
the little finger of each hand. In his own eyes his attire was splendid.
In the eyes of some one else also. To Prudence, as he stood there, he
looked absolutely beautiful; she felt all a mother's pride rise in her
heart as she surveyed him. But she must not let him see it, and she must
scold him for wearing his best clothes every day.
"I didn't know it was a festa," she began.
"'Tain't. But one of the fellows has had a sister married, and they've
invited us all to a big supper to-night."
"To-night isn't to-day, that I know of."
"Do you wish me to go all covered with sawdust?" said the little dandy,
with a disdainful air. "Besides, I wanted to come up here."
"It is a good while sence we've seen you," Prudence admitted. In her
heart she was delighted that he had wished to come. "Have you had your
dinner, Jo Vanny?"
"All I want. I'll take a bit of bread and some wine by-and-by. But you
needn't go to cooking for me, mamma. I say, tell me what it was that
made you look so glad?" said the boy, curiously.
"Never you mind _now_," said Prudence, the gleam of content coming again
into her eyes, and lighting up her brown, wrinkled face. She was glad
that she had the ten francs; she was glad to see the boy; she was
touched by his unselfishness in declining her offer of a second dinner.
No other member of the family would have declined or waited to decline;
the others would have demanded some freshly cooked dish immediately upon
entering; Uncle Patro would have demanded three or four.
"I've brought my mandolin," Jo Vanny went on. "I've got to take it to
the supper, of course, because they always want me to sing--I never can
get rid of 'em! And so you can hear me, if you like. I know the new
songs, and one of them I composed myself. Well, it's rather heavenly."
All Tonio's children sang like birds. Poor Prudence, who had no ear for
music, had never been able to comprehend either the pleasure or the
profit of the hours they gave to their carollings. But when, in his
turn, her little Jo Vanny began his pipings, then she listened, or tried
to listen. "Real purty, Jo Vanny," she would say, when the silence of a
moment or two had assured her that his song was ended; it was her only
way of knowing--the silence.
So now she brought her work out to the garden, and sewed busily while Jo
Vanny sang and thrummed. Nounce, too, came out, and sat on the wall near
by, listening.
At length the little singer took himself off--took himself off with his
red-satin cravat, his horseshoe pin, and his mandolin under his arm.
Nounce went back to the house, but Prudence sat awhile longer, using, as
she always did, the very last rays of the sunset light for her sewing.
After a while she heard a step, and looked up. "Why, Gooster!--anything
the matter?" she said, in surprise.
Unlike the slender little Jo Vanny, Gooster was a large, stoutly built
young man, as slow in his motions as Jo Vanny was quick. He was a
lethargic fellow with sombre eyes, eyes which sometimes had a gleam in
them.
"There's nothing especial the matter," he answered, dully. "I think I'll
go for a soldier, Denza."
"Go for a soldier? And the per-dairy?"
"I can't never go back to the podere. _She's_ there, and she has taken
up with Matteo. I've had my heart trampled upon, and so I've got a big
hankering either to kill somebody or get killed myself; and I'll either
do it here, or I'll go for a soldier and get knifed in the war."
"Mercy on us! there isn't any war now," said Prudence, dazed by these
sanguinary suggestions.
"There's always a war. What else are there soldiers for? And there's
lots of soldiers. But I could get knifed here easy enough; Matteo and
I--already we've had one tussle; I gave him a pretty big cut, you may
depend."
Seventeen years earlier Prudence Wilkin would have laughed at the idea
of being frightened by such words as these. But Mrs. Tonio Guadagni had
heard of wild deeds in Assisi, and wilder ones still among the peasants
of the hill country roundabout; these singing, indolent Umbrians dealt
sometimes in revenges that were very direct and primitive.
"You let Matteo alone, Gooster," she said, putting her hand on his arm;
"you go straight over to Perugia and stay there. Perhaps you can get
work where Parlo and Squawly are."
"I shall have it out with Matteo here, or else go for a soldier
to-morrow," answered Gooster, in his lethargic tone.
"Well, go for a soldier, then."
"It don't make much difference to me which I do," Gooster went on, as if
only half awake. "If I go for a soldier, I shall have to get to Florence
somehow, I suppose; I shall have to have ten francs for the railroad."
"Is it ten exactly?" said Prudence. Her mind flew to her work-box, which
held just that sum.
"It's ten."
"Haven't you got any money at all, Gooster?" She meant to help him on
his way; but she thought that she should like to keep, if possible, a
nest-egg to begin with again--say twenty cents, or ten.
Gooster felt in his pockets. "Three soldi," he replied, producing some
copper coins and counting them over.
[Illustration: "NOUNCE TOO CAME OUT, AND SAT ON THE WALL NEAR BY,
LISTENING"]
"And there's nothing due you at the per-dairy?"
There was no necessity for answering such a foolish question as this,
and Gooster did not answer it.
"Well, I will give you the money," said Prudence. "But to-morrow'll do,
won't it? Stay here a day or two, and we'll talk it over."
While she was speaking, Gooster had turned and walked towards the garden
wall. The sight of his back going from her--as though she should never
see it again--threw her into a sudden panic; she ran after him and
seized his arm. "I'll give you the money, Gooster; I told you I would;
I've got it all ready, and it won't take a minute; promise me that you
won't leave this garden till I come back."
Gooster had had no thought of leaving the garden; he had espied a last
bunch of grapes still hanging on the vine, and was going to get it; that
was all. "All right," he said.
Prudence disappeared. He gathered the grapes and began to eat them,
turning over the bunch to see which were best. Before he had finished,
Prudence came back, breathless with the haste she had made. "Here," she
said; "and now you'll go straight to Florence, won't you? There's a
train to-night, very soon now; you must hurry down and take that."
He let her put the money in his coat-pocket while he finished the
grapes. Then he threw the stem carefully over the garden wall.
"And no doubt you'll be a brave soldier," Prudence went on, trying to
speak hopefully. "Brave soldiers are thought a heap of everywhere."
"I don't know as I care what's thought," answered Gooster,
indifferently. He took up his cap and put it on. "Well, good-bye,
Denza. Best wishes to you. Every happiness." He shook hands with her.
Prudence stood waiting where she was for five minutes; then she followed
him. It was already dark; she went down the hill rapidly, and turned
into the narrow main street. A few lamps were lighted. She hastened
onward, hoping every minute to distinguish somewhere in front a tall
figure with slouching gait. At last, where the road turns to begin the
long descent to the plain, she did distinguish it. Yes, that was
certainly Gooster; he was going down the hill towards the railway
station. All was well, then; she could dismiss her anxiety. She returned
through the town. Stopping for a moment at an open space, she gazed down
upon the vast valley, now darkening into night; here suddenly a fear
came over her--he might have turned round and come back! She hurried
through the town a second time, and not meeting him, started down the
hill. The road went down in long zigzags. As she turned each angle she
expected to see him; but she did not see him, and finally she reached
the plain: there were the lights of the station facing her. She drew
near cautiously, nearer and nearer, until, herself unseen in the
darkness, she could peer through the window into the lighted
waiting-room. If he was there, she could see him; but if he was on the
platform on the other side--No; he was there. She drew a long breath of
relief, and stole away.
A short distance up the hill a wheelbarrow loaded with stones had been
left by the side of the road; she sat down on the stones to rest, for
the first time realizing how tired she was. The train came rushing
along; stopped; went on again. She watched it as long as she could see
its lights. Then she rose and turned slowly up the hill, beginning her
long walk home. "My," she thought, "won't Granmar be in a tantrum,
though!"
When she reached the house she made a circuit, and came through the
garden behind towards the back door. "I don't want to see the front yard
_to-night_!" she thought.
But she was rather ashamed of this egotism.
* * * * *
"And they say they'll put me in prison--oh--ow!--an old man, a good old
man, a suffering son of humanity like me!" moaned Uncle Pietro.
"An old man, a good old man, a suffering son of humanity like _him_,"
repeated Granmar, shrilly, proud of this fine language.
Suddenly she brandished her lean arms. "You Denza there, with your
stored-up money made from _my_ starvation--yam!--mine, how dare you be
so silent, figure of a mule? Starvation! yes, indeed. Wait and I'll show
you my arms, Pietro; wait and I'll show you my ribs--yam!"
"You keep yourself covered up, Granmar," said Prudence, tucking her in;
"you'll do yourself a mischief in this cold weather."
"Ahi!" said Granmar, "and do I care? If I could live to see you drowned,
I'd freeze and be glad. Stored-up money! stored-up money!"
"What do you know of my money?" said Prudence. Her voice trembled a
little.
"She confesses it!" announced Granmar, triumphantly.
"An old ma--an," said Pietro, crouching over Nounce's scaldino. "A good
old ma--an. But--accommodate yourself."
Prudence sat down and took up her sewing. "I don't believe they'll put
you in jail at all, Patro," she said; "'twon't do 'em any good, and what
they want is their money. You just go to 'em and say that you'll do
day's work for 'em till it's made up, and they'll let you off, I'll bet.
Nine francs, is it? Well, at half a franc a day you can make it up full
in eighteen days; or call it twenty-four with the festas."
"The Americans are all mercenary," remarked old Pietro, waving his hand
in scorn. "Being themselves always influenced by gain, they cannot
understand lofty motives nor the cold, glittering anger of the nobility.
The Leoncinis are noble; they are of the old Count's blood. They do not
want their money; they want revenge--they want to rack my bones."
Granmar gave a long howl.
"Favor me, my niece, with no more of your mistakes," concluded Pietro,
with dignity.
"I don't believe they'd refuse," said Prudence, unmoved. "I'll go and
ask 'em myself, if you like; that'll be the best way. I'll go right away
now." She began to fold up her work.
At this Pietro, after putting the scaldino safely on the stove, fell
down in a round heap on the floor. Never were limbs so suddenly
contorted and tangled; he clawed the bricks so fiercely with his fingers
that Nounce, frightened, left her bench and ran into the next room.
"What's the matter with you? I never saw such a man," said Prudence,
trying to raise him.
"Let be! let be!" called out Granmar; "it's a stroke; and you've
brought it on, talking to him about working, working all day long like a
horse--a good old man like that."
"I don't believe it's a stroke," said Prudence, still trying to get him
up.
"My opinion is," said Granmar, sinking into sudden calm, "that he will
die in ten minutes--exactly ten."
His face had indeed turned very red.
"Dear me! I suppose I shall have to run down for the doctor," said
Prudence, desisting. "Perhaps he'd ought to be bled."
"You leave the doctor alone, and ease his mind," directed Granmar;
"that's what he needs, sensitive as he is, and poetical too, poor
fellow. You just shout in his ear that you'll pay that money, and you'll
be surprised to see how it'll loosen his joints."
Mrs. Guadagni surveyed the good old uncle for a moment. Then she bent
over him and shouted in his ear, "I'll make you a hot fig-tart right
away now, Patro, if you'll set up."
As she finished these words Granmar threw her scaldino suddenly into the
centre of the kitchen, where it broke with a crash upon the bricks.
"He's going to get up," announced Prudence, triumphantly.
"He isn't any such thing; 'twas the scaldino shook him," responded
Granmar, in a loud, admonitory tone. "He'll never get up again in _this_
world unless you shout in his ear that you'll pay that money."
And in truth Pietro was now more knotted than ever.
At this moment the door opened and Jo Vanny came in. "Why, what's the
matter with uncle?" he said, seeing the figure on the floor. He bent
over him and tried to ease his position.
"It's a stroke," said Granmar, in a soft voice. "It'll soon be over.
Hush! leave him in peace. He's dying; Denza there, she did it."
"They want me to pay the nine francs he has--lost," said Prudence.
"Perhaps you have heard, Jo Vanny, that he has--lost nine francs that
belonged to the Leoncinis? Nine whole francs." She looked at the lad,
and he understood the look; for only the day before she had confided to
him at last her long-cherished dream, and (as she had been sure he
would) he had sympathized with it warmly.
"I declare I wish I had even a franc!" he said, searching his pockets
desperately; "but I've only got a cigarette. Will you try a cigarette,
uncle?" he shouted in the heap's ear.
"Don't you mock him," ordered Granmar (but Jo Vanny had been entirely in
earnest). "He'll die soon, and Denza will be rid of him; that's what she
wants. 'Twill be murder, of course; and he'll haunt us--he's always said
he'd haunt somebody. But _I_ ain't long for this world, so I ain't
disturbed. Heaven's waiting wide open for _me_."
Jo Vanny looked a little frightened. He hesitated a moment, surveying
the motionless Pietro; then he drew Prudence aside. "He's an awful
wicked old man, and might really do it," he whispered; "'specially as
you ain't a Catholic, mamma. I think you'd better give him the money if
it'll stop him off; _I_ don't mind, but it would be bad for you if he
should come rapping on your windows and showing corpse-lights in the
garden by-and-by."
Prudence brought her hands together sharply--a gesture of exasperation.
"He ain't going to die any more than I am," she said. But she knew what
life would be in that house with such a threat hanging over it, even
though the execution were deferred to some vague future time. Angrily
she left the room.
Jo Vanny followed her. "Come along, if you want to," she said, half
impatient, half glad. She felt a sudden desire that some one besides
herself should see the sacrifice, see the actual despoiling of the
little box she had labored to fill. She went to the wood-shed. It was a
gloomy December day, and the vegetables hanging on the walls had a
dreary, stone-like look; she climbed up on a barrel, and removed the hay
which filled a rough shelf; in a niche behind was her work-box; with it
in her hand she climbed down again.
She gave him the box to hold while she counted out the money--nine
francs. "There are twelve in all," she said.
"Then you'll have three left," said Jo Vanny.
"Yes, three." She could not help a sigh of retrospect, the outgoing nine
represented so many long hours of toil.
"Let me put the box back," said the boy. It was quickly and deftly done.
"Never mind about it, mamma," he said, as he jumped down. "_I_'ll help
you to make it up again. I want that front yard as much as you do, now
you've told me about it; I think it will be beautiful."
"Well," said Prudence, "when the flower-beds are all fixed up, and the
new front path and swing gate, it _will_ be kind of nice, I reckon."
"Nice?" said Jo Vanny. "That's not the word. 'Twill be an ecstasy! a
smile! a dream!"
"Bless the boy, what nonsense he talks!" said the step-mother. But she
loved to hear his romantic phrases all the same.
They went back to the kitchen. The sacrifice had now become a cheerful
one. She bent over the heap. "Here's your nine francs, Patro," she
shouted. "Come, now, come!"
Pietro felt the money in his hand. He rose quietly. "I'm nearly killed
with all your yelling," he said. Then he took his hat and left the
house.
"We did yell," said Prudence, picking up the fragments of the broken
scaldino. "I don't quite know why we did."