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IRMA IN ITALY
[Illustration: PERUGIA. _Frontispiece_
(_See page 205._)]
IRMA IN ITALY
A TRAVEL STORY
BY
HELEN LEAH REED
AUTHOR OF "THE BRENDA BOOKS," "IRMA AND NAP,"
"NAPOLEON'S YOUNG NEIGHBOR," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
AND FROM DRAWINGS BY WILLIAM A. MCCULLOUGH
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1908
_Copyright_, 1908,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
The Tudor Press
BOSTON, U. S. A.
To M. E. F.
A TRUE TRAVELLER
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE START 1
II. THE WESTERN ISLANDS 19
III. TOWARD THE CONTINENT 39
IV. AWAY FROM GIBRALTAR 60
V. ON SHORE 80
VI. NAPLES AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD 98
VII. CAVA AND BEYOND 111
VIII. PAESTUM AND POMPEII 125
IX. ROMAN DAYS 146
X. A QUEEN AND OTHER SIGHTS 169
XI. TIVOLI--AND HADRIAN'S VILLA 187
XII. AN ANCIENT TOWN 203
XIII. OLD SIENA--AND NEW FRIENDS 215
XIV. NAP--AND OTHER THINGS 232
XV. A LETTER FROM FLORENCE 251
XVI. A CHANGE IN MARION 270
XVII. IN VENICE 288
XVIII. EXPLANATIONS 312
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Perugia _Frontispiece_
"I wish I could take them all," she said 6
Naples. A Street View 84
"With one girl clutching her dress,
she could not move fast" 132
Pompeii 144
Near La Trinita, Rome 170
Rome. Group on Spanish Steps 170
Cascades at Tivoli 188
Wall of Orvieto 188
Spires of Florence 262
San Marco, Florence 262
Siena. General View with Campanile 292
Ravenna. Theodoric's Tomb 292
"As Irma approached, the girl looked up" 296
Venice. The Grand Canal 308
Venice. A Gondolier 308
IRMA IN ITALY
CHAPTER I
THE START
"OF course it's great to go to Europe; any one would jump at the chance,
but still----"
As the speaker, a bright-eyed girl of sixteen, paused, her companion,
slightly younger, continued:
"Yes, I know what you mean--it doesn't seem just like Irma to go away
before school closes. Why, if she misses the finals, she may have to
drop from the class next year."
"Probably she expects Italy to help her in her history and Latin."
"Travelling is all very well," responded the other, "but there's
nothing better than regular study. Why, here's Irma coming," she
concluded hastily; "she can speak for herself."
"You are surely gossiping about me," cried Irma pleasantly, as she
approached her two friends seated on the front steps of Gertrude's
house. "You have surely been gossiping, for you stopped talking as soon
as you saw me, and Lucy looks almost guilty."
"Listeners sometimes hear good of themselves," replied Lucy, "but we'll
admit we have been wondering how you made up your mind to run away from
school. I shouldn't have dared."
"My father and mother decided for me, when Aunt Caroline said she must
know at once. There was some one else she would invite, if I couldn't
go. I simply could not give up so good a chance to see Europe. But of
course I am sorry to leave school."
"Now, Irma, no crocodile tears." Gertrude pinched her friend's arm as
she spoke. "Fond as I am--or ought to be--of school, I wouldn't think
twice about leaving it all, if I had a chance to shorten this horrid
winter."
"Winter! And here we are sitting in the open air. In six weeks it will
be May, and you won't find a pleasanter month in Europe than our May,"
protested Lucy.
"We intend to have some fine picnics this spring; you'll lose them if
you go," added Gertrude.
"One can't have everything," sighed Irma. "I know that I must lose some
good things if I go away."
"Examinations, for instance," cried George Belman, who had joined the
group.
"And promotions, perhaps," added John.
"But still," continued George, "I say Irma deserves a change for her
unselfishness in having whooping-cough last summer, just to keep Tessie
company."
"Well, it was considerate in Irma to get over it before school opened;
stand up, dear, and let yourself be counted."
"Oh, Gertrude, how silly you are!" but even while protesting Irma rose
slowly to her feet, and her friends, looking at her, noticed that she
was paler and thinner than she had been a year earlier.
"Come, now," said Lucy, rising, and affectionately slipping her arm
around Irma's waist, "tell us your plans. Gertrude knows them, but I
have heard only rumors."
"I am not quite sure myself about it all. Only I am to sail with Aunt
Caroline and Uncle Jim to Naples by the southern route, and, after going
through Italy, we shall be home in July--and a niece of Aunt Caroline's,
or rather of Uncle Jim's, is going with us."
"You didn't tell _me_ that," interposed Gertrude. "You won't miss us
half as much if you have another girl with you. I begin to be jealous."
"If there were ten other girls in our party I'd miss my friends just as
much," said Irma. "Besides, I'll be too busy to take an interest in mere
girls."
"Busy!" It was George who said this, with a little, mocking laugh.
"Yes, busy; busy sightseeing and reading, and perhaps studying a little.
For you know I must take a special examination in September. How
mortifying if I had to stay behind next year!"
"Then I shall drop behind, too, or at least I should wish to," said
George gallantly.
"Did some one speak of summer?" asked Lucy, rising. "Now that the sun
is low I am half frozen. Come, Irma, I will walk to your door with you,"
and, after a word of farewell to the others, the two friends walked away
together.
Irma, now in her second year in the High School, had really enjoyed her
studies, and she was sure that her ancient history was to be made much
more vivid by her journey, and even the dry hours she had spent on Caesar
would count for much when she reached Italy. It was well, perhaps, that
Irma herself had little to do in preparing for her journey. As it was,
it was hard enough to keep her mind on lessons those last weeks, when
there was so much besides to think of. Still, the March days flew by
swiftly. Irma was to sail from New York the Saturday before Easter,
which this year came very early. A week before she was to start a
steamer trunk arrived from New York, accompanied by a letter from Aunt
Caroline.
"Your mother must have so much to do that I wish to save her a little of
the trouble of shopping," wrote Aunt Caroline, "and I do hope that these
will fit you."
"I can't see that the steamer rug is a very close fit," said Rudolph,
laughing, as Irma held up the warm-looking square of blue and green
plaid. "But the Panama hat's all right,--only the rug and the hat will
look rather queer together."
Into the steamer trunk during the week Irma put many little things that
the girls at school--and indeed some of the boys--gave her as parting
gifts.
"I wish I could take them all," she said, as she stood beside the trunk.
"But there are so many duplicates. I suppose I could use two pinballs
and two brush-holders, but I don't need three needlebooks and half a
dozen toothbrush cases. Oh, dear, and all have been so kind that I wish
they had compared notes first, so that I needn't have so many things I
can't use."
[Illustration: "I WISH I COULD TAKE THEM ALL," SHE SAID.
(_Page 6._)]
"It's better to have too many than too few," said Tessie sagely.
"Tessie," however, only occasionally, since the ten year old maiden
scorned the diminutive of her earlier years, and insisted that now she
was old enough to be known as "Theresa."
"It's better for you, Theresa," responded Irma, "for some of these
things may find their way to your room. Lucy might let me give you this
needlebook, or at least lend it, for perhaps it wouldn't do to give a
present away."
"Well, I'll borrow it now, to help me remember you when you are gone,"
and Tessie, delighted with her treasure, ran off to her room with it.
During her last days at home Irma realized that Nap was not happy. He
followed her from room to room, and, so far as he could, kept her always
in sight. When she sat down, he lay at her feet with his nose touching
her dress. When she moved she almost stumbled over him; and once, when
she went to close the steamer trunk, there he was inside! He might have
suffered Ginevra's fate, had not Irma happened to look within.
"He truly knows just what you are going to do, and he meant to hide
until the trunk was opened on the ship, so you'd have to take him with
you," cried Tessie.
"Yes," added Chris, "perhaps he thinks that's his only chance of finding
Katie Grimston again. She's still in Europe, isn't she?"
"Well, Katie Grimston shall never have him."
"But she did not give him to you; she wrote she would claim him on her
return."
"Yes, but she isn't here to claim him, and possession is nine points of
the law." Then Irma picked the little creature up and ran away with him.
The boys were very philosophical about their sister's departure.
"If I should stay home they'd be grievously disappointed," Irma confided
to Gertrude. "They are calculating so on the stamps and post cards I am
to collect for them, that I wouldn't dare change my mind."
Mahala's interest, however, made up for the indifference of the boys to
their sister's departure.
"We shall miss you dreadfully," and Mahala sighed heavily, "though it's
a great thing for a person to have the advantage of foreign travel; not
that I'd cross the ocean myself, for what with the danger of meeting
icebergs," she continued cheerfully, "and bursting boilers and all the
other perils of the sea--dear me, I'd feel as if I was taking my life in
my hands to embark on an ocean liner. But I'm glad you're going, Irma.
One of the family ought to have the experience----"
"Of icebergs and bursting boilers," cried Irma. "O Mahala, I am
surprised at you."
"Going to Europe has seemed to me like a dream," continued Irma, turning
to her mother, "but Mahala would change it to a nightmare," and the help
from Aroostook, Maine, withdrew in confusion to the kitchen.
If Irma had thought going to Europe a dream, the dream seemed pretty
nearly true one Saturday morning, when from the deck of the great
steamship she watched the receding dock, until in the crowd she could
barely discern the figure of her father as he stood there waving his
handkerchief. At this moment there were real tears in her eyes, though
she had fully made up her mind not to cry. For the moment a great many
thoughts crowded upon her,--memories of her mother looking from the
window as the coach drove off to the station, of the boys and Tessie
standing at the gate, and Mahala on the steps with Nap in her arms, held
tightly, lest his continued wriggling should at last result in his
running after the carriage.
"It's really very selfish in me to go so far when none of the others
can go," Irma mused, and as the ship moved seaward, she was so lost in
sad thoughts that she hardly heeded Aunt Caroline's "Come, dear. Here is
Marion, whom you haven't met yet."
Turning about, Irma experienced one of the greatest surprises of her
life. Instead of the girl in long skirts whom she expected to see, there
stood by her aunt's side a tall boy, apparently a little older than John
Wall or George Belman. Who could he be? And where was Marian? The boy
had pleasant, brown eyes, but a fretful line about his lips interfered
with the attractiveness of his face.
There was no time for questions. Before Irma could speak, Aunt Caroline
continued, "I do hope you two young people will like each other. Marion,
this is Irma, about whom I have told you so much."
The boy and the girl looked at each other for a moment in silence. Irma
was the first to speak.
"Why--why I thought from your letter that Marion was a girl," she said
awkwardly.
This speech did not better matters. Marion was still silent as he
extended his hand to meet the one that Irma offered him. Then,
acknowledging the introduction with a touch of his hat, he turned on his
heel and walked off.
"Poor boy!" exclaimed Aunt Caroline, as he passed out of sight. "We must
be patient. We must do what we can for him. Had things been different,
he could hardly have come with us. But why did you think Marion a girl?"
"I never heard of a boy named Marian."
"Oh--it's after General Marion. Perhaps my wretched writing made the 'o'
look an 'a'. I didn't refer to our nephew?"
"No, you only said you hoped I'd like Marian, who was the same relation
to Uncle Jim that I am to you," and Irma smiled, remembering that Aunt
Caroline was only an aunt by courtesy,--in other words, an intimate
friend of her mother's.
"Well, we are very fond of Marion--even if he isn't a real nephew--only
we must all make allowances for him," then Aunt Caroline flitted off,
while Irma wondered why allowances must be made for a tall, good-looking
boy, who seemed well able to take care of himself.
Meanwhile, Marion, leaning against a rail at some distance from Irma,
was on the verge of a fit of the blues.
"Thought I was a girl. Oh, yes, I suppose they have told her
everything. Aunt Caroline ought to have had more sense. Anyway, I hate
girls, and I'll try not to see much of this one."
Then Marion, to whom New York Harbor was no novelty, went within, while
Uncle Jim joined Irma, and pointed out many interesting things. The
great city they were leaving looked picturesque to Irma, as she gave its
spires and high buildings a backward glance. The mammoth Liberty,
standing on its little island, held her attention for a moment. Past the
closely built shore of Long Island and the forts on the Westchester
side, they were getting into deeper water, and Irma was straining her
eyes in the direction of Sandy Hook, toward which Uncle Jim was
pointing, when Aunt Caroline hurried up to her: "If you come in now, you
can write a short letter to your mother."
"To my mother?"
"Yes, to send back by the pilot. But you must be quick."
Following her aunt, Irma was soon in the small saloon, where twenty or
thirty persons were writing at small tables or on improvised
lap-tablets. In one corner a ship's officer was tying up bundles of
letters and putting them in the large mail bag that lay beside him.
Irma quickly finished her brief home letter. It was only a word to let
them know she was thinking of them.
As she approached the mail steward, "No, sir, we 'aven't a stamp left,"
she heard him say, "heverybody's been writing. The stamps are hall
gone--hat least the Hamerican."
"Oh, don't we need English stamps?" Irma turned to her aunt.
"No, dear. I am sorry he has no American stamps. I can enclose your
letter with my own to Cousin Fannie, and she'll remail it."
"Oh, but I have stamps. I brought half a dozen with me." An old
gentleman who had vainly asked the steward for a stamp stood near Irma.
She had heard him express annoyance that he must entrust his letter to
the pilot unstamped. "One can seldom trust a friend to put a stamp on a
letter--still less a complete stranger--and this is very important."
"Excuse me," interposed Irma, stepping up to him. She wondered
afterwards how she had dared. "Will you not take one of my stamps?" she
said.
A broad smile brightened the old gentleman's face. "You certainly are
long on stamps, and I am obliged to you for letting me share your
prosperity." Then, stamping his letter, he dropped it into the mail bag.
"I'll take two," said a lady abruptly, approaching Irma, and without so
much as "by your leave," she detached two from Irma's strip of four, and
dropping a nickel into her hand, walked off with a murmured "Thank you."
A second and younger lady then approached.
"Could you let me have two stamps?" she asked politely. "I overheard you
say that you had some."
"Certainly," said Irma, and after thanking her, this applicant, with a
pleasant "Fair exchange is no robbery," slipped into Irma's hand two
Italian stamps. This seemed a much more gracious payment than the
nickel. Later she recalled that the old gentleman had paid her
nothing--and this, she decided, was the most courteous way of all.
The steward had fastened the bag when Marion rushed up to him. "Oh, say,
steward, give me a stamp."
"'Aven't hany, sir."
"Well, you ought to have some."
"Mine are all gone, too," said Irma. "I had half a dozen a few minutes
ago."
"You might have saved some for me," snapped Marion; "why should a girl
write so many letters?"
"I wrote only one," began Irma. "You can give your letter to the pilot."
But Marion's only answer was to tear his letter into fragments. Then he
followed the steward with the bag, and Irma was almost alone in the
deserted saloon.
The letter she had just written was the last word she could send home
for a week. It would be twice as long before she could hear from any of
the family. She began to wish that she had gone back on the pilot boat.
Why, indeed, had she ever left home? She should have waited until they
could all visit Europe together. Now all kinds of things might happen to
Chris or Rudolph or Tessie--or even to her father and mother--and it
might all be over before she could hear a word. She began to be really
unhappy, and again her eyes filled in a desperate feeling of
homesickness.
After this first attack, Irma was, for a time, able to put the family
out of her mind. At the first luncheon on shipboard, which she hardly
tasted, her place at table was between Aunt Caroline and Marion. But at
dinner when Marion appeared he dropped into the seat next to Uncle Jim,
leaving his former place vacant.
"It's only one of Marion's notions," whispered Aunt Caroline. "I fear he
is shy, and doesn't know what to say to you."
Irma was not comfortable in learning that Marion regarded her as a
person to be avoided. "If only Marion had been a friendly girl how much
pleasanter our party would be," she thought.
At first Irma felt she could hardly manage to live in her small
stateroom. But when she had fastened to the wall the linen hold-all her
mother had made, filled with various little things, and had stowed other
small possessions in the drawer under the mirror, she saw the
possibility of adapting herself to her cramped quarters. She soon had a
regular program. She rose with the first morning bugle, and after her
early bath, while Aunt Caroline dozed, dressed quickly.
Then she had a brisk walk on deck before breakfast, which Uncle Jim's
party had at the second table.
Sunday morning--her second day at sea--Irma found a letter by her plate
at breakfast.
"It's from Lucy," she cried, turning it over and over.
"A steamer letter," explained Uncle Jim. "Are you such a landlubber as
not to know that in these days letters follow you regularly on your
voyage?"
A moment later she discerned in a corner, "Care the Purser," and then
she broke the seal.
"What news?" asked Uncle Jim, as she finished.
"All you'd expect from a letter written before I left home. I wonder how
far we are now," she concluded with a sigh.
"Too far for you to swim back," answered Aunt Caroline, reading her
thoughts.
Among the letters that Irma received daily after this, Mahala's was
especially entertaining.
"To dream of a horse," she began, "is a sign of a letter, so I'm
writing because I dreamt of a horse last night, though that isn't the
way it's generally meant to work. Tessie's beginning to live up to many
of the signs I've taught her, and when I told her I hoped your voyage
wouldn't be unlucky because you were leaving Cranston Friday--just after
you started she ran out of the room, and when I went on the steps to see
if she'd gone over to the Flynns', well, just at that very minute
something struck me on the head, and such a mess, all down my face and
over my apron. When I got hold of Tessie she explained that she'd heard
me say that if any one wished on an egg dropped from a second story
window, the wish would come true--if the egg didn't break--but this egg
certainly broke, and I hope it won't cause you ill luck. This wouldn't
require mentioning, only I thought it might make you laugh if you happen
to feel peaked the day you read this letter. We didn't punish Tessie,
because she's feeling kind of bad about you, and she got scared enough
when the egg broke on my head."