Jerry Junior Part 17

He had another question to ask. He had been told--though of course he did not believe it--that the Indians in America had red skins.

Constance nodded yes. His eyes opened wider.

"Truly red like your coat?" with a glance at her scarlet golf jacket.

"Not quite," she admitted.

"But how it must be diverting," he sighed, "to travel the world over and see different things." He fell silent and trudged on beside her, the wanderl.u.s.t in his eyes.

It was almost dark when they reached the big arched gateway that led into the village. Here their ways parted and they paused for farewell.

"Signorina," the young man said suddenly, "take me with you back to America. I will prune your olive trees, I will tend your vines. You can leave me in charge when you go on your travels."

She shook her head with a laugh.

"But I have no vines; I have no olive trees. You would be homesick for Italy."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Then good bye. You, signorina, will go around the world and see many sights while I, for travel, shall ride on a donkey to Valedolmo."

He shook hands all around and with the grace of a prince accepted two of Tony's cigarettes. His parting speech showed him a fatalist.

"What will be, will be. There is a girl--" he waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the village. "If I go to America then I cannot stay behind and marry Maria. So perhaps it is planned for the best. You will find me, signorina, when next you come to Italy, still digging the ground in Grotta del Monte."

As he swung away Tony glanced after him with a suggestion of malice, then he transferred his gaze to the empty gateway.

"I see no one else with whom you can talk Italian. Perhaps for ten minutes you will deign to speak English with me?"

"I am too tired to talk," she threw over her shoulder as she followed her father through the gate.

They plunged into a tangle of tortuous paved streets, the houses pressing each other as closely as if there were not all the outside world to spread in. Grotta del Monte is built on a slope and its streets are in reality long narrow flights of stairs all converging in the little piazza. The moon was not yet up, and aside from an occasional flickering light before a madonna's shrine, the way was black.

"Signorina, take my arm. I'm afraid maybe you fall."

Tony's voice was humbly persuasive. Constance laughed and laid her hand lightly on his arm. Tony dropped his own hand over hers and held her firmly. Neither spoke until they came to the piazza.

"Signorina," he whispered, "you make me ver' happy tonight."

She drew her hand away.

"I'm tired, Tony. I'm not quite myself."

"No, signorina, yesterday I sink maybe you not yourself, but to-day you ver' good ver' kind--jus' your own self ze way you ought to be."

The piazza, after the dark, narrow streets that led to it, seemed bubbling with life. The day's work was finished and the evening's play had begun. In the center, where a fountain splashed into a broad bowl, groups of women and girls with copper water-jars were laughing and gossiping as they waited their turns. One side of the square was flanked by the imposing facade of a church with the village saint on a pedestal in front; the other side, by a cheerfully inviting osteria with tables and chairs set into the street and a glimpse inside of a blazing hearth and copper kettles.

Mr. Wilder headed in a straight line for the nearest chair and dropped into it with an expression of permanence. Constance followed and they held a colloquy with a bowing host. He was vague as to the finding of carriage or donkeys, but if they would accommodate themselves until after supper there would be a diligence along which would take them back to Valedolmo.

"How soon will the diligence arrive?" asked Constance.

The man spread out his hands.

"It is due in three quarters of an hour, but it may be early and it may be late. It arrives when G.o.d and the driver wills."

"In that case," she laughed, "we will accommodate ourselves until after supper--and we have appet.i.tes! Please bring everything you have."

They supped on _minestra_ and _fritto misto_ washed down with the red wine of Grotta del Monte, which, their host a.s.sured them, was famous through all the country. He could not believe that they had never heard of it in Valedolmo. People sent for it from far off; even from Verona.

They finished their supper and the famous wine, but there was still no diligence. The village also had finished its supper and was drifting in family groups into the piazza. The moon was just showing above the house-tops, and its light, combined with the blazing braziers before the cook-shops made the square a patch work of brilliant high-lights and black shadows from deep cut doorways. Constance sat up alertly and watched the people crowding past. Across from the inn an itinerant show had established itself on a rudely improvised stage, with two flaring torches which threw their light half across the piazza, and turned the spray of the fountain into an iridescent shower. The gaiety of the scene was contagious. Constance rose insistently.

"Come, Dad; let's go over and see what they're doing."

"No, thank you, my dear. I prefer my chair."

"Oh, Dad, you're so phlegmatic!"

"But I thought you were tired."

"I'm not any more; I want to see the play.--You come then, Tony."

Tony rose with an elaborate sigh.

"As you please, signorina," he murmured obediently. An onlooker would have thought Constance cruel in dragging him away from his well-earned rest.

They made their way across the piazza and mounted the church steps behind the crowd where they could look across obliquely to the little stage. A clown was dancing to the music of a hurdy-gurdy while a woman in a tawdry pink satin evening gown beat an accompaniment on a drum. It was a very poor play with very poor players, and yet it represented to these people of Grotta del Monte something of life, of the big outside world which they in their little village would never see. Their upturned faces touched by the moonlight and the flare of the torches contained a look of wondering eagerness--the same look that had been in the eyes of the young peasant when he had begged to be taken to America.

The two stood back in the shadow of the doorway watching the people with the same interest that the people were expending on the stage. A child had been lifted to the base of the saint's pedestal in order to see, and in the excitement of a duel between two clowns he suddenly lost his balance and toppled off. His mother s.n.a.t.c.hed him up quickly and commenced covering the hurt arm with kisses to make it well.

Constance laughed.

"Isn't it queer," she asked, "to think how different these people are from us and yet how exactly the same. Their way of living is absolutely foreign but their feelings are just like yours and mine."

He touched her arm and called her attention to a man and a girl on the step below them. It was the young peasant again who had guided them down the mountain, but who now had eyes for no one but Maria. She leaned toward him to see the stage and his arm was around her. Their interest in the play was purely a pretense and both of them knew it.

Tony laughed softly and echoed her words.

"Yes, their feelings are just like yours and mine."

He slipped his arm around her.

Constance drew back quickly.

"I think," she remarked, "that the diligence has come."

"Oh, hang the diligence!" Tony growled. "Why couldn't it have been five minutes late?"

They returned to the inn to find Mr. Wilder already on the front seat, and obligingly holding the reins, while the driver occupied himself with a gla.s.s of the famous wine. The diligence was a roomy affair of four seats and three horses. Behind the driver were three Italians gesticulating violently over local politics; a new _sindaco_ was imminent. Behind these were three black-hooded nuns covertly interested in the woman in the pink evening gown. And behind the three, occupying the exact center of the rear seat, was a fourth nun with the portly bearing of a Mother Superior. She was very comfortable as she was, and did not propose to move. Constance climbed up on one side of her and Tony on the other.