Boston a novel
government by mass insurrection of the proletariat? How could she have
imagined that Mr. Lowell would have consented to further the propaganda
of anarcho-syndicalism? How could she have imagined it--or, for that
matter, how could he?
XI
There was a good-sized grape-arbor behind the house, and it came slowly
into leaf, and then into blossom, and spread upon the air a marvelous
sweet perfume; you could stand and drink it, almost as if it were the
reality of autumn instead of the promise of spring. “Divino da vino!”
said Vincenzo Brini; it was in the days before prohibition, of course.
“Gooda redda wine,” he said, pointing to the blossoms. “You calla heem
‘Dago Red.’” And then with his good-natured grin he pointed to himself.
“Nodder kind Dago Red!” He pointed to Vanzetti. “More Dago Red!”
It was a joke to which they were much accustomed. The children would
hear it called after them when they went to school: “Dago Red! Dago
Red!” Even Father O’Brien had taken it up, and in one of his sermons
had advised his flock to avoid any and all kinds of “Dago Reds.” “What
you t’ink of dat?” said Alfonsina, outraged; and Cornelia answered.
“Tell him what they did to Jesus. He too had a nickname, ‘King of the
Jews.’ They wrote it on the cross--‘I.N.R.I.’--Jesus of Nazareth, King
of the Jews.”
“I know,” said Vanzetti. “I read heem. He was not what priest say, he
was worker, same like me and you, ribello, rivoluzionario! Da priest
in his time want him kill-èd--say he make trouble. I no--cannot say it
Eengleesh--”
“‘And they were the more fierce, saying, he stirreth up the people.’”
“Joosta so! He was gooda man, povero. I sorry when he die. I make tears
for heem. I say compagno--Comradda Gesu, die for make joostice for
worker.”
So it was when you were talking with Bart. You would begin by smelling
the grape blossoms and making jokes about the wine you were going to
drink; and you would end by making tears for Comradda Gesu.
“Summer is y-comen in!” sang the pair of wrens on top of the
grape-arbor; putting in an extra vowel, just as if they had been
Dagoes! It was a time for coming outdoors, a time for beauty and joy.
But alas, the hideous slaughter in Europe was mounting to frenzy,
becoming an extermination of the human race. The exploiters and
imperialists whose greed had dragged Italy into the conflict were
sending propagandists over here, to lure the Italian youth back into
the slaughter-pit.
And so there was a bugle call in the soul of Bartolomeo Vanzetti. He
heard it all the time, he could never cease talking about it. He must
not spend the warm summer days lying on Castle Hill, reading Dante and
Manzoni; he must help to organize meetings in one town or another; he
must go the day before and distribute handbills from house to house,
and beg the people to come; he must be on hand to take up a collection
and forward it to Galleani, so that more papers might be printed, to
hold the demon of militarism at bay, and expose the lies of piety and
patriotism. That was his duty, his martyrdom--his way of following the
example of Comradda Gesu!
CHAPTER IV
YOUNG AMERICA
I
The days passed; and one of them rang a bell in the soul of Cornelia
Thornwell. She had kept her vow, she had won the wager with herself.
For a whole year she had taken care of herself, asking no advice and no
favors from any one. She had got a job as a manual worker, and held it
for a year, and lived on her earnings, and had twenty-five dollars put
away. Now she might go home if she wanted to.
Did she want to? It was hard to be sure; at one time she would find
herself thinking about this one and that, and what had happened to them
all this time. But then she would remember the desperate determination
of everybody to dominate her life; all those highly disciplined and
rigid people who knew what she ought to do at every moment of her life,
and would never cease from telling her! Well, she would have a way to
escape, a city of refuge!
She had made up her mind to tell no one where she had been; it would
be a scandal, a mystery with which they might torment themselves for
the rest of her life; a skeleton in the family closet--the bones of a
runaway grandmother! The imp of mischief kicked up his heels in the
depths of Cornelia’s soul; she thought of each person she knew, and
what that person would make of the problem. The secret would be a club
she would hold over their heads, to make them behave. “Let me alone, or
I’ll disappear again!” Like her daughter Alice’s hysterics, which had
developed at the age of three, in a lovely and much petted child who
wanted to have her own way, and which continued in a social queen of
forty, who had to have a platonic lover in addition to a husband.
Now Alice’s mother would also have a platonic romance! Cornelia, aged
sixty-one, would have an adopted son, an Italian ditch-digger, aged
twenty-eight--agnostic, anarchist, and “Dago Red!” She might be sure
of its being safe and innocent, for she had watched him a year, and
never seen him look at a woman, nor heard him voice such an idea. Also
she had the word of Alfonsina: “He never t’ink woman, he joosta t’ink
joostice.”
Such was Cornelia’s tangle of moods, when, on an evening in July
she was coming home from work with another woman, and down the main
street they saw, walking toward them, two girls of the leisure class.
There was nothing unusual in this, for the summer-hotels were open,
the “season” at Plymouth was in full swing. To be sure, the daughters
of the rich did not prefer this part of the town for walking; their
part lay to the south, where the shore-road was lined with villas
and splendid estates. The workers would see them roaring by in fast
motor-cars, radiant, exquisite, with veils floating; snatches of
laughter and song would be wafted back, reminding you of the paradise
of freedom and happiness you had lost by being born in the wrong half
of Plymouth.
The two girls came on; one in pink chiffon, one in white, both lovely
and gay, chatting, not heeding the swarm of tired laborers, drab
and dusty. Cornelia saw them coming, and her eyes rested on them
carelessly--until suddenly she started, and the blood leaped into her
face. That one in pink, with the lovely little round face framed in
soft brown hair and crowned with a pink chiffon hat with flowers--that
was her grandchild, Betty Alvin! Little Betty, grown two or three
inches taller, and miraculously blossomed into womanhood, rounded and
ripe.
Cornelia was in a panic. What must she do? Look straight ahead--no,
she must turn to the other woman and talk--about anything, the first
words that came into her head--“That foreman is too bad-tempered, he’s
not fit for such a job, there’ll be trouble in our wrapping-room if he
stays, there ought to be some way we could make a protest--” and so
on, while the girls came nearer. And suddenly--Cornelia must not look,
but out of the corner of her eye she saw Betty stop and stare. The two
working women passed by, and went on quickly, Cornelia chattering about
anything, anything.
Betty had recognized her grandmother! Would she turn and follow?
Cornelia ventured a swift glance behind, and saw that the two girls
were going on. It was the Thornwell training; Betty, assuming she were
sure of the recognition, would understand that Cornelia might not want
to be recognized, might not want the truth to be known to Cornelia’s
companion or to Betty’s. But what a tumult must be in the child’s young
heart! Her long-lost and prayed-for “Grannie,” in the shape of a poor
old working-woman in a faded calico dress, with a pitiful remnant of
a black straw hat stuck on her head. No, it couldn’t be true! Yet it
could not be doubted!
Betty would come back, Cornelia felt certain. She thought it over and
decided to take the child into her secret. Betty was the one for whom
she cared most; it would be like a visit home. So next evening Cornelia
lingered on the way from work, and walked by herself; and presently
here came Betty, in the same pink dress, but with no companion. Seeing
her coming, Cornelia turned off the main street, up a more or less
deserted lane, and presently she stopped, and turned and met her
grand-daughter.
II
“Grannie! It’s you!” And then, “Oh, Grannie! How could you?” And then,
“Grannie! What on earth have you been doing?”
“I’ve been taking care of myself, dear.”
“Oh, Grannie, but how!” And then, “Oh, you poor dear! Why, your
shoulders are bowed! And your poor hands, your fingers! Who ever saw
such things?” Betty became speechless; but the tears gushed into her
eyes and ran down her cheeks.
“Don’t worry about me, dear. I’ve been having a very good time; and
I’ve learned a lot.”
“What have you been doing?”
“I’ve been working for Mr. J. Lawrence Perry. Don’t you remember that
nice old gentleman who comes to dinner?”
“Does he know it?”
“No, of course not; I’m just a cordage worker.”
“But, Grannie, what ever put such an idea into your head?”
“I wanted to know that I could take care of myself, and I wanted others
to know it, so they would let me alone. I wanted to be independent.”
There came a flash of fire behind the rainclouds in Betty’s eyes. “Oh,
Grannie, I know exactly how you feel! Sometimes I’ve thought I’d do the
same thing! If I’d known where you were, I think I’d have come to you.”
Cornelia dodged that suggestion. “How is everybody at home, dear?”
“Why, they’re all right, I guess--the same as they always are. They’re
very much worried about you, of course.”
“Are they really that, or do they just have to pretend it?”
“They have to pretend not to be; because it is supposed to be all
right, you know.”
“Everything is always supposed to be all right,” said Cornelia. “What
am I doing?”
“You went to California for the winter; and you’ve been ordered to a
rest-cure.”
“I see. The neighbors will take that to mean that I’m in an asylum.”
“Well, Grannie, that wouldn’t shock them any more than this. Oh! I
never heard of such a thing in my life. How do you _stand_ it?”
“Well, it hasn’t always been easy, but it’s been good for me. I’ll be
myself from now on, and not what any one else wants me to be.”
“How are you living?”
“I’m boarding with an Italian family, very good kind people. I’m
comfortable there, and I’ve learned all sorts of things. I went through
the strike last winter.”
“Grannie, how perfectly thrilling! I never heard anything so romantic!”
The girl was aglow with excitement, and Cornelia would have liked to
take her in her arms and hug her. But what would the neighbors think,
seeing a working-woman on such terms of intimacy with a young lady of
fashion? Even in North Plymouth, one must remember the neighbors!
“Betty, I’m taking you into my secret, and you must keep it for me. I’m
not going to tell anybody where I have been.”
“Of course, Grannie, whatever you say. But are you going to live here
always?”
“No, I shall come back; but I don’t think I’ll live with the family.”
Then, after a moment: “What did they do about their quarrel?”
“You mean about the cradle and the rug? Well, you see, they forgot
it when they found you had gone; they were so shocked, and ashamed of
themselves. Now they don’t speak about it--in fact, they’ve persuaded
themselves it didn’t happen. Aunt Alice took the Mayflower cradle out
of the house because she knew that grandfather had left it to her in
the will.”
“Did he really do that?”
“Yes, and he left the Shah of Persia’s rug to Mother; and so they
didn’t have to have a row, and they didn’t; it’s the sort of thing that
couldn’t happen in Boston, so it never did. If anybody mentioned it,
they’d deny it--and they’d be very angry about the denial.”
Cornelia laughed. “You little monkey! Are they teaching you psychology