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THE LESSON

BY ADRIANA SPADONI

WITH DRAWINGS BY WLADYSLAW BENDA

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A woman in a purple head-shawl, holding a baby asleep in her lap, sobbed aloud. dark, hairy man next to her spoke roughly: Macche, thou art a fool! What is there to cry for? The beauty of Napoli does not fill the stomach. To-morrow we are in America. Our children will have shoes, like the sons of the rich, and meat to eat."

The girl with the bronze giant laid her hands on his shoulders. "Our little one will be an American; he will never cry for bread."

The little gray eyes of Il Sorcio, the Mouse, darted from one to the other. "So, so, the same dream always. In five, ten years, they think to return, dressed like the sindaco." Il Sorcio shrugged his shoulders. Bene, to dream costs nothing."

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The group of emigrants moved uneasily. Il Sorcio had been in America before. Perhaps he knew best, after all. The dark, hairy man turned towards him sullenly. "Listen," he said. "For fifteen years we have waited and worked, I and the wife and the children." He glanced down at the woman in the purple shawl, the girl and boy at her side, and the two younger children gathered close in her arms. "We are strong as oxen," he went on. "There is work for all in this America, and for work one is paid. A fool can understand. And I have not wasted fifteen years for nothing.'

Il Sorcio cocked his head knowingly. "Fifteen years! Most surely with such a patience thou wilt be rich."

"Even so," said the dark, hairy man, complacently.

The woman in the purple shawl dried her eyes and looked up proudly. The boy Amadeo began again the refrain of his song. Under the white stars the ship moved on towards the land of hope. Hour after hour they sang until at last the boy laid down his accordion to wipe his hot, damp face.

"Bene.

It is enough. To-morrow there is much to do."

In little groups the listeners went, calling good-night in loud, happy voices. Only Il Sorcio, the boy Amadeo, and the dark, hairy man remained. In a far corner of the deck the bronze giant and his girl wife slept in each other's arms. The boy put down his accordion and spoke to the man who had waited fifteen years. "Tomasso Soracco," he said, "tell me of those many years." His oval face aged with the intensity of his desire. Signore, I, too, must wait for a wish. May the blessed saints grant not so long!"

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Il Sorcio drew out a thin black cigar and bit at its end. "Bene. Tell of those years. Only pigs sleep on a night like this."

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The man nodded slowly. His shoulders straightened. Perhaps the boy will remember what I shall say when his wish is slow to come. Ecco, I will tell him all.

"I was fourteen, and already I had worked many years in the vineyards dressing the vines like a man. My mother worked also, for my father was dead, and there were three others younger than I. We worked all day in the hot sun, and at night we walked back to the village. We had bread and onions to eat, and grapes, sometimes a little goat's cheese, and on feast days polenta with oil. We worked very hard, and were happy for the heat in the sun and the blue in the sky. When there was not enough to eat, we said an extra prayer and went to bed with the stomachs empty. It was that way for many years. Then the world changed.

"I remember as to-night the day America came into my life, like a bullet shot from a gun. It was warm and blue, and the earth smelled of sun and grapes. I was working, late in the afternoon, on the side of a hill, when I saw all the men in the field running quick to one spot. I dropped my knife and ran too. A cart was coming slowly, drawn by the padrone's red bull, and the wheels of the cart were covered with vine leaves. In the cart sat the padrone, a big black man with a great mustache, and hands that beat the air like the paddles of a wheel. Always he looked very silent and angry; but this day he smiled. Beside him sat a young man

in a suit of black wool, with a black hat, like a black box, upon the head. His hair was shining with oil, and he had a gold ring on the finger. I could not get near the cart, for the others had got there first, and were pushing close. Suddenly they all began to shout and knock each other, trying to take the bull from the cart and draw it themselves. The young man laughed and made motions with the hands so that his gold rings glittered. Then he began to throw money on the ground-handfuls of silver money. We were quiet as death. The man next to me began to pray. We were afraid. The son of the padrone laughed. Fools, fools! Do you wait till it makes another crop? In America I pick it up in the street.' Then we fell on the earth and began beating each other for the money. I was little and tried to slip in between their legs and gather the pocket full; but they pushed me with their bare feet, and I got only one small coin. All the time the padrone and the son sat in the cart laughing, very fat and proud, while we went over and over the black earth till it was fine like flour. Then the padrone ordered a holiday in honor of the son who had come back from America with chests of silver and gold, and the cart went away.

"After that the world was no more the same. All day the talk in the fields was only of America, and at night we dreamed. Sometimes the son of the padrone walked among the vines, and we listened as to Christ. He told us of America, where people had meat every day and wore shoes as though it was always a feast day, and of cities with miles of houses all as high as the

campanile. And there no man could say, 'This shalt thou do, because thy father was a contadino;' and there was no king to take the food from the mouth to buy velvet for his nobles. Dio mio, it must be like heaven !"

Il Sorcio blew a big puff of strong smoke. "Of a truth, such a country is heaven."

man.

"Ecco! At the end of a month the son of the padrone returned to America. Our country was too small for such a fine gentleBut the words did not go with him. Like seeds in the ground, they stayed with Sometimes at night, after many long, hot hours among the vines of the padrone, The mother would say, 'If the good God had taken thy father, we also would go to rica, where there is work for all and y lying in the street. But it is not pos

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sible for a woman to do these things, and it is many years before thou art a man.'

"And I cried because it was so long until I should be a man. The warm sun on the hills no longer made us happy. We talked always of America.

"Then my friend Felipe disappeared just before he was called to the army. His mother cried all day and all night and his father said prayers in the church. Many weeks after came word from America. Luigi, the letter-writer of our village, read it aloud in the market-place. The day after Felipe arrived in New York he found work, at six lire the day !"

The boy Amadeo crossed himself quickly. "Six lire! May the saints grant the same

to me." Tomasso smiled. "For us surely is it possible, since Felipe had the brains of a pig.

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the kindness of a millionaire." "Che?" Tomasso Soracco turned inquiringly.

"Nothing," said Il Sorcio. And he laughed again.

"And in the church," continued Tomasso, "the father preached against the wicked Protestant country that sucked the blood of Italy like a leech. He said our young men were selling their souls for gold. We listened quietly, but afterwards, outside in the sun, we were not afraid to talk. What does a fat priest with three good meals a day know of hunger? He has only to chatter mass like a monkey.

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fortune from God!-and the mother and I working many hours a day could not earn enough to bring all.

"Then, like a flash from Vesuvio on a black night, a letter came to us from America. With her face white like cloth, the mother ran to Luigi. I see yet my big, strong mother shaking like a branch in the wind as Luigi read. It was from her youngest brother. Many years before he had gone for a soldier. He had never come back. Often the mother had said, 'He died, our beautiful Gino, there in that furnace of an Africa!' Now he wrote from America that often he thought of his sister and the land of the vines. Three nights running he had dreamed of her. He sent a picture of four fine children. So! forty-lire.

For this sign he wrote. himself and his wife and Also he sent forty lire.

"Of that night I remember nothing clear. It was a fever-like seeing the gates of heaven open. Ecco!

"For many weeks people came to see the picture, until the mother had to tie it in bee netting to keep it clean. And Luigi asked one whole lire to write an answer to my uncle, for he said he could not write in dialect, but must use fine, long words of good Italian to such a great man. We gave also a candle of pure wax to Saint Anthony, and sewed the rest of the money in a little bag.

"Then one night the mother and I sat alone and talked till day came white, like light through a milky glass. We, too, would leave the vines.

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"We will go down to Napoli,' she said, the big city by the sea, where the ships come every day from America. There we will wait. To work more and make less than here is not possible. And it is many days' journey nearer America. Bene. Let us start soon.' Ecco! such a woman was the mother. So I made a little cart and we put in the mattress and the copper pots and we came down many, many miles from the hills to Napoli. We found a little black room behind the fish shop of Pepe and went there to live and to wait. The mother cooked the food for Pepe and helped also in the shop. In this way we paid no rent. The mother learned to make flowers of paper, and little Gemma, my sister, sold them in the streets, among the foreigners, who often paid more than the price because the little one was so pretty. And I drove the wine cart of Francesco, and we were very happy.

The uncle wrote sometimes, and always he sent a present, but never again forty lire, which was right, for he had a wife and four children. We told him of the wish to come to America, and he promised to find work for me and the mother, and also for Carlino. We ate only bread and onions now and a little fish when Pepe gave it, but no more cheese or polenta with oil. The money came slowly into the little sack, but it came. We were happy, so happy together! Then one day the devil put the hand on my back and said, 'You are mine.'”

Tomasso stopped. Il Sorcio drew deeply on his black cigar and waited. The boy at last touched the dark, hairy man on the knee. "Misfortune came to thee?"

Tomasso Soracco started as if he had been drawn back from a great distance. "Bad luck or devil, who knows? I was eighteen now, and I thought only of work, of food, and America. I was happy. On feast days I drank a little wine with my friends, but I had never kissed a girl as a man kisses a woman. My lips were the lips of a child. I was so the day I came to the wine-shop of Francesco. It was dark in the shop. In the shadow I saw a woman standing, her throat white against the blackness beyond, and her breast swelling above her corset. She was laughing at Francesco, her eyes were black stars, her hair like clouds on a windy night. On her head she balanced a basket of flowers --big red flowers like drops of fire. I am thirty, no longer a boy, yet to-night I can still see her face against the blackness of that shop."

"There are many who see such faces," said Il Sorcio. His thin hands moved as though he brushed something from before his eyes. Amadeo leaned closer.

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It happened as it happened. She turned, slow, slow, as one wakes from sleep. She looked at me, and from that moment the evil eye was on me. May the devil fry forever the souls of such women as Lucia!

"I was mad, quite mad. I could not eat, I could not sleep. I went all day with the face of Lucia before the eyes. At night we sat in the warm darkness where we could see the big ships and the sea, and the blood ran like fire through my body. After four weeks-a life-she threw her arms about my neck and said: 'Let us go to America. Thou art too young to have the burden of so many people. Thou hast brains. Thy sisters will marry and have men to care for

them. Already the mother is old-one country is like another then. Together we will soon be rich. I shall wear gold earrings, like the wife of Francesco, and the women who now turn the back will kiss their hand.' With her breath hot on my lips she kissed

me.

"I went home. I said to the mother: 'Give me the money in the sack. It is not enough for all. For many years I have worked like a man and thought only of thee and the children. Now I will think for myself.' At first the mother did not understand. Then the face went red like a burning coal and she began to breathe like a kettle without water. We fought with the tongues like two fishermen of the wharves. I was mad, remember, mad. The blood boiled to think of Lucia. In the sack there was enough to take two to America. I pushed the mother aside. I tore the clothes from the bed and took the sack-the hope, the dream, of many years and ran out of the house."

"Dio mio!" The boy gasped.
Il Sorcio shrugged.

makes the Lucias."

"For such the devil

"I ran to Lucia. She kissed me and rubbed her face against mine as we sat together and counted the money. I see yet the long brown fingers playing with the coins. She whispered and talked to the clinking money, while I looked at the black little curls on the neck and the full breast above the corset. When it was late, we gathered the money into the sack and went down to where the big ships were. Many people were there sleeping among their bags, waiting for the day. I did not know where to go for a ticket, and we walked about for a long time. Then I saw a man with small black eyes looking as if he, too, could not find the place. Lucia sat down and told me to go and ask the man. He listened. He said the office was closed, but he had influence, and if I would wait a little while he would get the ticket.

"I waited, but no one came. It was almost morning before I understood. Ecco! In this way a kiss makes a man out of a child.

"I left Napoli that night. I went far into the country, away from the land of the vines where I was born. I had only one thought, to return the money. All day and all night I saw the mother and the little sisters waiting. I prayed for the anger of God to strike the woman who had done this thing to me.

"I would work for a few weeks in a place,

and then go away. The smell of the sea I could not bear. To smell the sea was to dream of the Lucia. I tried, too, to find a place where I would hear no more the name America until I could return to the mother and say, 'Forgive me. To-morrow we leave this country that has only the warm sun and the hope of heaven for those who have not the brains to leave her.' For I knew in the heart that if I went alone always would the bad luck follow me. Had I not taken the hope of the good mother and the little sisters and thrown it into the sea? Ecco ! The memory ate my heart like a rat. But I could not find a place where the name of America was not known. It ran through the country like the roots of a vine under the ground.

"Two months after I ran from Napoli I came to a place where they paid a lira a day for good olive-pressers, men were so scarce. I found work and stayed, living alone, eating only bread and olives, and saving every cent like a Jew to buy back the body of his God. I was strong, and I worked well. I never drank, and when there was dancing and feasting in the square I never looked to the girls, but kept my head cool.

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One day, when I had been working six months, my master came to me and said: 'Thou workest well. I have been watching. Thou art young, but hast a good head, not like the crazy boys who dream only to leave the old country, so that the olives burst without men to press them and the vines die. Thou hast seen my daughter. She is not beautiful, but she is good, my Maria. If thou wilt marry with her, I will give one hundred lire, for all the young men go from the land, and I grow old. Think of what I say.' I thought for one night. Then I went and asked for the hand of his daughter."

The boy sighed and looked out into the wake of the ship.

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THEN HE BEGAN TO THROW MONEY ON THE GROUND-HANDFULS OF SILVER MONEY

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