Boston a novel
floor, making desperate efforts to get up, but in vain, because the
mighty Brini was on top of him, holding him down. All that could be
seen of Compagno Culla was a pair of coattails disappearing speedily
through a doorway.
Vanzetti promised to behave, and was let up. He was too angry this
time to make apologies to Cornelia. But he told her volubly what
that abbominevole Culla had done; after voting to deliver the
workers back into slavery, he had had the insolence to come here
to the house, to ask for some fifty dollars of relief money, which
Vanzetti had collected from the anarchistas of a neighboring town,
and which Culla, as a member of the strike committee, was supposed
to take over. Vanzetti had refused to give the money up; never would
he trust anything to gialli socialistas, riformistas and traditori
of the working class! He would take the money back to those who had
contributed it, or he would turn it over for the use of some other
strikers. Culla, very angry, had threatened to brand Vanzetti for
malversazione, embezzlement of the workers’ funds; and thereupon
Vanzetti shouted, “Spee-a! Spee-a!”--which is to say, “Spy,” the most
dreadful of all accusations.
Such was the ending of Cornelia’s career as a striker. Next morning she
got up at a quarter to six, and was duly pinned up in her shawl, and
stumbled through the darkness to her place in the wrapping-room of the
cordage plant. The bosses were very polite--good morning, glad to see
you--it was almost like a social function, an extraordinary change.
The workers had shown that they had some power after all, and the
lesson would not be soon forgotten. And the State Board of Arbitration
and Conciliation set to work, and after two months of deliberation it
succeeded in finding a formula which would save the face of the company
officials, enabling them to do what they had declared was impossible.
Cornelia would find more money in her pay-envelope thereafter, and it
seemed quite wonderful--until she stopped and figured that it would
take nearly half a year for the increase to make up what she had lost
during her weeks of idleness. It was the most perfect of social systems.
VII
There was no more work for Vanzetti in or near the cordage plant; his
reckless agitation had cost the company a couple of hundred thousand
dollars a year in extra wages, and so he was stopped when he tried to
pass the gates. Some one set detectives to follow him everywhere he
went. He managed to find himself a job cutting ice: a safe, outdoor
activity, where he was in plain sight, and there was no harm he could
do. So he remarked to Cornelia, with a twinkle in his eye, “I putta
bombe da dinnameet under da ice, he freeze again nexta night queek!”
Ten hours a day he pushed a long saw on an ice-pond, and slid heavy
blocks onto wagons. He liked the work because it was picturesque
and lively, and gave him a chance to look about. He would come home
exhausted, but with adventures to tell. He got himself a pair of
rubber boots; they were expensive, and he was proud of them, and so
was Trando, who could almost get into one of them, and was a comical
spectacle staggering about the room in two. But three days later
Vanzetti came back without these treasures, and at supper-table he
said, “I must get nodder two boot.”
“What’s the matter?” Everybody asked at once. “You lost them?”
“No losta,” said Vanzetti, “butta no got. I take heem off for go wit’
wagon. I come back, see feller, Pietro, you know heem--Guasti, I t’ink
he name.”
“I know heem,” said Brini. “No gooda feller.”
“He poor feller. He got wife, four bambini. No can live soocha familee
for what you get cutta da ice. I see he got my boota, putta heem on for
work. I t’ink I go heem say, ‘You giva me boot, you worka no boot.’ But
I senta shame for do it. I t’ink, Vanzett’, you lonely man, no gotta
bambini for buy suppa, you worka little bit more, get nodder boot.”
Later on, towards spring, came another incident that Cornelia never
forgot. The ice was gone now, and Vanzetti was back at “picka shov’,”
and one day he reported that he had lost his purse on the street.
How much did he have in it? Not sure, but he thought maybe thirteen
dollars. That was a whole week of hard labor, and everybody was
concerned. The family discussed it all through supper. Vanzetti said
that he was sure there was plenty honest people in Plymouth, maybe one
of them had picked up the purse; he would put up signs, the way they
did in Italy. So Cornelia helped him to phrase a notice, “Lost, small
purse,” with his name and address; he went out that evening with a
hammer and some tacks, and put up the notices on telegraph poles along
his route.
This was while he was still being watched by detectives--in fact they
did not entirely let up until eighteen months after the strike. So
everybody was startled when, next evening after supper, there came a
blue-uniformed policeman. “You advertised a purse?”
“Shoore,” said Vanzetti; a little uneasy, as the poor always are in the
presence of the law. Might this method of advertising be illegal among
these strange Yankees?
“What kind of purse?”
“He is rounda blacka purse, not very moocha beeg.”
“What did you have in it?”
“I t’ink I got t’irteen dollar, notta more.”
“Is this your purse?” The policeman held it out.
“I t’ink it is heem, looka like heem.”
“But it’s got eighteen dollars in it.”
Vanzetti hesitated. “No t’ink had eighteen dollars. Shoore no got so
moocha mon’. Musta be odder purse.”
The members of the Brini family had crowded to the door to listen, and
now broke into protest. “What you say, Bart?” cried Alfonsina. “You no
can tella ah mooch you got?” And to the policeman, “He no can tella
ah mooch mon’ he got! He giva da mon’ all time. He giva da mon’ to
little one, children all time--he buy somet’ing, giva present all time,
never t’ink for keepa da mon’. My osband here, he tella you, Mister
Polissman. Tella heem, Vincenzo!”
“Shoore,” said Brini, “He bigga fool for money. He giva me for keep,
forgetta, never know ah mooch he got.”
“Me know his purse,” persisted the woman. “Me see alla time in room, me
fixa room. Could taka half his mon’ all da time, he not know it. It is
hee’s purse, Mr. Polissman.”
They discussed the time and place where the purse had been found, and
everything fitted. So the policeman said, “I guess you better take
it. Nobody else has claimed it.” But Vanzetti was stubborn, he was
quite sure he couldn’t have had so much as eighteen dollars in his
possession. He would not take it, and the policeman went off, much
puzzled at this singular kind of “wop.”
Also there were further developments of the affair Culla, curious and
touching to the Yankee observer. Compagno Culla had been blacklisted by
the cordage company--despite the fact that he was one of the moderates.
He was doing some kind of sedentary work, and complained that he was
suffering from indigestion. Vanzetti, enthusiast for the back-to-nature
way of life, advised him that it was because of sitting still all day.
Said Bart, telling Cornelia about it, “Come wit’ me, worka picka shov’,
you maka you self new man.” And sure enough, Compagno Culla gave up his
indoor work, and went to digging ditches, and after he had got used to
it, he found that his indigestion was better. He mentioned it once at
the Brinis, and Bart patted him on the shoulder, proud and benevolent.
After the visitor had gone, Cornelia said, “You don’t want to kill
him any more!” And Vanzetti grinned, as he had learned to do when
“Nonna” was teasing him. “Wanta kill so long he try for be offeesh’,
maka union, be secretary da union, maka jobba for self. When he come
lika me, worka picka shov’, maka fight capitalista, padrone, den he is
compagno, comradda, gooda feller, I lika heem.” So, little by little,
Cornelia came to understand the type of idealist-fanatic, which could
be gentle as a child in all personal relationships, but fierce and
dangerous when roused by social wrong.
VIII
Springtime! You dressed by the light of dawn, and the good old sun was
shining over the sea as you went to your day’s work. As if ashamed for
the suffering his absence had caused you, he gave double measure, and
the snows melted, and little rivers ran from every hillside, and in
sheltered corners you saw green things sticking their timid heads from
the ground. Brini hurried home from the factory and tore off his coat
and seized his spade and went to work, a man possessed by the common
or garden variety of frenzy. Even Vanzetti, after ten hours “picka
shov’,” could not escape the disease, and joined in with the rake. So
must the Pilgrim fathers have behaved after that first long winter,
when so many had perished upon inadequate rations, and they dreamed the
miracle of green things growing from this strange new soil.
One lovely brown bed after another was leveled and raked smooth, and
laid out with strings by the eager children. They could hardly wait
for their father to get home in the afternoon to start planting. They
set up labels on little stakes--it was a miniature graveyard of seeds,
and everybody cherishing the religious hope--“Resurgam!” The children
would come hurrying home from school, and there were the tiny green
threads of onions, and little green points that would be radishes, and
pink-tinged ones that would be beets! When, a couple of weeks later,
there were some big enough to be pulled and washed and made into a baby
salad, that was a regular religious ceremony, a Dago thanksgiving.
Out in the woods you could find tiny flowers of fragile and unearthly
beauty, such as ravish the souls of children, and of prophets and
dreamers and fanatics. On Sunday mornings Vanzetti and Cornelia and
Fay and Trando would set out, and if it had been left to the man they
would never have stopped wandering the whole day long, and by night
time they would have been lost. The woods were his temple, full of
infinite mysteries. He would point out signs of nature’s cunning; he
would speculate about things he did not understand, and ask Cornelia
if she knew; if nobody knew, perhaps they could watch and find out. He
would get down on his knees over an ant’s nest, and be happy for an
hour with the frenzied labors of these tiny bundles of energy. Then he
would spring up and start walking again; come on, it was almost time
for mayflowers, perhaps they would find some in the next little valley.
And the seashore! So many strange things that you had never seen
before! The children would scramble about on slippery rocks at low
tide, and gather more treasures than their hands could hold. Better
leave them where they were, said Bart, and carry off knowledge about
them. They would sit on the high rocks to rest, and watch the sailboats
and the ships, and speculate about where they came from and what they
brought. Bart was curious as to other parts of the world, and how men
lived there. When he discovered that Cornelia had read books about such
things, he would ask her questions, pretending that it was for the
education of the children--but it was like the father who enjoys the
circus more than the children do!
The mayflowers came, and you could gather bunches of them, and turn the
humblest worker’s home into a bower. The vegetable rows were shining
now, and the salads on the supper-table were explosions of green, and
the soups were steaming symphonies in red and green and white and
yellow. The rising sun ran you a race in the morning, and the evenings
were so bright and lovely that you hated to go to bed. It was what you
had been waiting for, through the black and bitter winter; Cornelia
quoted the one-eyed Kalandar of the Arabian Nights: “This indeed is
life! Pity ’tis ’tis fleeting!”