The little girl appeared at the door, twisting the corner of her apron
in her fingers, and said,--
"Here I am!"
Then, when no one paid any attention to her, she looked shyly first at
one and then at another of the women who were kneading dough, and
spoke again,--
"They told me,--'Go to _comare_ Sidora.'"
"Come here, come here," cried _comare_ Sidora, red as a tomato, as she
stood in the back part of the bake-shop. "Wait a moment, and I'll make
you a nice cake."
"It means they are bringing _comare_ Nunzia the Viaticum; they've sent
the little girl away," observed the woman from Lacodia.
One of the women engaged in kneading the dough, turned her head, with
her hands still at work in the trough, her arms bare to the elbow, and
asked the little girl,--
"How is your step-mother?"
The child, not knowing the woman, looked at her with frightened eyes,
and hanging her head, and nervously working at the ends of her apron,
said, in a low voice, between her set teeth,--
"She's in bed."
"Don't you see 'tis the Sacrament," replied la Licodiana. "Now the
neighbors have begun to scream at the door."
"As soon as I finish kneading this dough," said _comare_ Sidora, "I'll
run over a moment to see if they have need of anything. _Compare_ Meno
loses his right hand when this second wife of his dies."
"Some men have no luck with their wives, just as some are unfortunate
with their mules. No sooner do they get 'em than they lose 'em.
There's _comare_ Angela."
"Yesterday evening," observed la Licodiana, "I saw _compare_ Meno at
his door; he had come back from the vineyard before the Ave Marie, and
was blowing his nose on his handkerchief."
"But," suggested the woman who was kneading the dough, "he is a master
hand at killing off his wives. In less than three years already two of
_curatolo_[18] Nino's daughters have been eaten up, one after the
other! Wait a little and you'll see the third go the same way, and all
_curatolo_ Nino's things wasted."
[18] The manager of a farm, not a tenant.
"Is this little girl _comare_ Nunzia's daughter, or his first wife's?"
"She's his first wife's daughter. But this one has been just as kind
to her as though she had been her own mamma, because the little orphan
was her niece, you know."
The child, hearing them speaking of herself, began to weep silently in
a corner, thus relieving her bursting heart, which she had till then
kept under control, by playing with her apron.
"Come here, come here," pursued _comare_ Sidora. "The nice cake's all
ready. There, there! Don't cry; for your mamma's in Paradise."
The little girl then dried her eyes with her doubled fists, because
she saw that _comare_ Sidora was preparing to open the oven.
"Poor _comare_ Nunzia!" said a neighbor, appearing at the door. "The
gravediggers are on their way. They just passed by here."
"Heaven protect me! as I am under Mary's grace!"[19] exclaimed the
women, crossing themselves.
[19] "_Lontano sia! che son figlia di Maria!_"
_Comare_ Sidora took the cake out of the oven, brushed off the ashes,
and handed it, smoking hot, to the little girl, who took it in her
apron and walked away slowly, slowly, blowing on it as she went.
"Where are you going?" cried _comare_ Sidora. "Stay here! There's a
black-faced _ba-bau_ at your house who carries folks off."
The little orphan listened gravely, with wide-opened eyes. Then she
replied in the same obstinate drawl,--
"I am going to carry it to my mamma."
"Your mamma is dead; stay here," said one of the neighbors. "Eat your
cake."
Then the little girl squatted down on the door-step, the image of
sadness, holding her cake in her hand without offering to eat it.
Then suddenly seeing "_il babbo_" coming, she jumped up joyously and
ran to meet him.
_Compare_ Meno entered without saying a word, and sat down in a
corner, with his hands dangling between his knees, with a long face,
and his lips as white as paper; for since the day before, he had not
put a morsel of food into his mouth because of his grief. He looked at
the women as if to say,--
"_Poveretto me!_"
Seeing the black handkerchief around his neck, the women, with their
hands still pasted with dough, made a circle round him and condoled
with him in chorus.
"Don't speak of it to me, _comare_ Sidora," he exclaimed, shaking his
head, and heaving up his great shoulders. "This is a thorn that will
never be pulled out of my heart. That woman was a real saint! I did
not deserve her, saving your presence. Only day before yesterday, when
she was so sick, she got up to tend to the weaning colt, and she would
not let me call in the doctor, or buy any medicine, either--so as to
not waste any money. I sha'n't find another wife like her. No I
sha'n't, I tell you. Let me weep--I've good reason to."
And he began to shake his head and to heave his shoulders as if his
misfortune were a burden not to be borne.
"As to getting another wife," said la Licodiana, to encourage him,
"all you've got to do is to look for one."
"No! no!" asseverated _compare_ Meno, with his head hung low, like a
mule's. "Such another wife is not to be had. This time I shall remain
a widower. I tell you I shall."
_Comare_ Sidora interrupted him,--
"Don't say foolish things like that. You must get another wife, if
only for the sake of this little orphan girl; for otherwise, who will
look out for her when you are out working? You wouldn't let her run in
the streets, would you?"
"Then find me another wife like my last one! She would not wash
herself, for fear of soiling the water; and at home, she served me
better than a farm-hand--affectionate and faithful. Why, she would not
take even a handful of beans from the rack, or ever open her mouth to
ask for anything. And beside, a fine dowry--things as good as gold.
And I've got to give it all back because she had no children. At
least, so the sacristan says, when he came with the Holy Water. And
how kind she was to the little girl who reminded her of her poor
sister. Any other woman, except an aunt, would have cast an evil eye
on her, the poor little orphan!
"If you asked _curatolo_ Nino for his third daughter, it would make
things all right, both for the orphan and for the dowry," suggested la
Licodiana.
"That's what I say. But don't speak of it to me, for now my mouth is
bitter as gall."
"I wouldn't talk about it now," said _comare_ Sidora. "Eat a bit of
something, _compare_ Meno. You are all tired out."
"No! no!" returned _compare_ Meno several times. "Don't speak to me of
eating, for I have a lump in my throat."
_Comare_ Sidora placed before him on a stool fresh bread with ripe
olives, a piece of sheep's-head cheese, and a jug of wine. And the
poor clumsy fellow set to work nibbling at it, all the time grumbling,
with a long face.
"Such bread as she made," he observed with a quaver in his voice, "no
one else could ever make. Just as if it were made of real meal. And
with a handful of wild fennel, she would make a soup to lick your
fingers over! Now I shall have to buy bread at the shop of that thief,
_mastro_ Puddo; and as for hot soup, I sha'n't have any more, when I
come home wet as a fresh-hatched chicken. And I shall have to go to
bed with a cold stomach. Only the other night, while I was watching
with her, after I had been digging and grubbing all day on the hill,
and caught myself snoring as I sat next the bed, so tired I was, the
poor soul said to me: 'Go and get a mouthful of something to eat. I
left the soup to keep hot on the hearth.' And she was always thinking
about my comfort, and about the house, and whatever was to be done,
and this thing and that thing; and she could not come to an end of
speaking or of giving her last directions, like one who is going off
on a long journey, and I heard her constantly muttering between waking
and sleeping. And how contentedly she went off to the other world!
With the crucifix on her breast, and her hands folded over it. She
has no need of Masses and rosaries, saint that she was. Money spent on
the priest would be money thrown away."
"World of tribulation!" exclaimed a neighbor. "_Comare_ Angela's ass
is like to die of the colic."
"But my misfortunes are heavier," ended _compare_ Meno, wiping his
mouth with the back of his hand. "No, don't make me eat any more, for
the mouthfuls fall like lumps of lead into my stomach. You eat
something, you poor innocent, for you don't understand what you've
lost. Now you have no one any longer to wash you and brush your hair.
Now you haven't a mamma any more to shelter you under her wings like a
setting hen, and you are ruined, as I am. I found her for you, but a
second stepmother like her you won't get, my daughter!"
The child with bursting heart put up her lip again, and stuck her
fists into her eyes.
"No, you can't possibly get along alone," interposed _comare_ Sidora.
"You must find another wife for the sake of this poor little
motherless girl, left in the midst of the street."
"And how shall I get along? And my colt? And my house? And who'll look
after the hens? Let me weep, _comare_ Sidora! It would have been
better if I had died instead of that good soul."
"Hush, hush! you don't know what you are saying, and you don't know
what a house without its head is!"
"That is true," assented _compare_ Meno, comforted.
"Just take example from poor _comare_ Angela! First, her husband died;
then her grown-up son, and now her ass is also dying."
"The ass ought to be bled in the belly, if it has the colic," said
_compare_ Meno.
"Come, you know all about such things," suggested the neighbor. "Do a
work of charity for the sake of your wife's soul."
_Compare_ Meno got up to go to _comare_ Angela's, and the little
orphan ran behind him like a chicken, now that she had no one else in
the world. _Comare_ Sidora, good housewife that she was, called him
back.
"And the house? How have you left it, now that there is no one there
to look after it?"
"I locked the door, and besides cousin Alfia lives opposite, and will
keep an eye on it."
Neighbor Angela's ass lay stretched out in the midst of the yard, with
his muzzle cold and his ears hanging, every now and then kicking his
four legs into the air whenever the colic made him draw in his sides
like a pair of bellows. The widow crouching in front of him on the
rocks, with her hands clenching her gray hair, and her eyes dry and
despairing, was watching him, pale as a corpse.
_Compare_ Meno manoeuvred round the animal, touching his ears,
looking into his lifeless eyes, and when he saw that the blood was
still oozing from the punctured vein under the belly, drop by drop,
and coagulating in a black mass on his hairy skin, he remarked:
"So you've had him bled, have you?"
The widow fixed her dark eyes on his face without speaking, and nodded
her "yes."
"Then there's nothing more to do," said _compare_ Meno, and he
continued to stare at the ass, which stretched itself out on the
stones, stiffly, with its hair all rumpled, like a dead cat.
"It is God's will, sister!" said he to comfort her. "We are ruined,
both of us!"
He had gone round by the widow's side and squatted down on the stones,
with his little daughter between his knees, and both of them continued
to gaze at the poor beast, which from time to time threshed the air
with its legs as if it were in the agonies of death.
_Comare_ Sidora, when she had got the bread safely out of the oven,
also came into the yard with the cousin Alfia, who had put on her new
gown and wore her silk handkerchief on her head, all ready for a bit
of gossip, and _comare_ Sidora said to _compare_ Meno, drawing him
aside,--
"_Curatolo_ Nino won't give you his third daughter, for at your house
the women die off like flies, and he loses the dowry. And then la
Santa is too young, and there's the risk that she'd fill your house
with children."
"If only one could be sure of boys! But there's always the danger of
girls coming. Oh, I am so unfortunate!"
"Well, there's the cousin Alfia. She is no longer young, and she has
property,--the house and a bit of vineyard."
_Compare_ Meno fixed his eyes on the cousin Alfia, who with her arms
a-kimbo was pretending to look at the ass, and then he said, "That's
so! One might think of that. But I am so very unlucky!"
_Comare_ Sidora interrupted him,--
"Think of those who are more unlucky than you are!"
"No one is, I tell you. I shall never find another wife like her, I
shall never be able to forget her, even if I married ten times. And
this poor little orphan will never forget her, either."
"Calm yourself! You'll forget her fast enough. And the little girl
will forget her, too. Didn't she forget her own mother? But just look
at poor neighbor Angela, whose ass is dying, and she hasn't got
anything else. She'll never be able to forget it."
_Comare_ Alfia saw that it was a favorable moment for her to approach,
and drawing a long face, she began to eulogize the dead woman. She had
with her own hands helped to lay her out on the bier, and had put over
her face a fine linen handkerchief, of which she had a goodly store,
as may be imagined.
Then _compare_ Meno, with his heart melting within him, turned to his
neighbor Angela, who was sitting motionless, as if she had been turned
to stone.
"I suppose you'll have the ass skinned won't you? At least get some
money for his pelt."