Boston a novel
and hid behind his mother’s skirts.
Nick and Rosina were to act in the play to-night, so the guests refused
to go into the house and disturb them. The visitors had their supper
all in a box, and would make a “picanic” on the Saccos’ front lawn.
But nothing could prevent the host from showing them his garden;
next to his family, it was the pride of his life, he worked at it
every night till it was too dark to see. He led them down the rows of
tomato plants, and lifted the branches and showed the big red globes
underneath. He knew only a few words of English, but Cornelia did not
need a translator, because for forty years she had seen her husband
showing off his flowers to visitors, and she knew every expression and
gesture that goes with the ceremony.
X
They went to the hall where the play was to be, and met most of the
Italians of New England, it seemed. There were Nick and Rosina on
the stage, magically transformed into peasants of the home country.
Cornelia had one of the young Angelottis on each side, and they were
supposed to whisper into her ear what was happening; but they became
so enthralled that they forgot there was anybody in the world but the
figures in the play. However, Cornelia knew many Italian words, and
all possible Italian gestures; and the story was so simple, and so full
of action, it was easy to follow.
Nick was a peasant, whose son had been taken from him and forced
to fight the Arabs in Tripoli. Meantime the father was in dire
straits--“Militarism and Misery” was the title of the drama. His
wife was ill of a fever, and he had no money, and the cruel landlord
threatened to turn them out. When Nick offered to work for the
landlord, his plea was refused, because, as an anarchist, he would lead
the other workers to revolt. A good doctor came to visit the wife,
and he and Nick had a debate, in which Nick set forth the principles
of his faith with most wonderful eloquence. His comrades brought
him money, and threw out the landlord, calling him “affamatore” and
“assassino”--starver and assassin: whereat the doctor was so much
impressed that he declared himself a convert to anarchism. “The new
comrade am I”--and the other comrades burst into cheers, and the
audience was not slow to follow.
Then came the soldier-boy, home from the wars. He boasted of the
Arab women and children he had slain, and his father, a true
internationalist, threw his pay into his face and ordered him from
the home. “Get out, get out of here, robber and assassin!”--a painful
scene. In the next act, the soldier-boy sat in the barracks, brooding
over his shame--to such good effect that when he discovered another
soldier with a load of antimilitarist literature, he let the guilty
one escape. And when in the last act he was ordered home, in charge
of a file of troops, to shoot down the striking peasants, he refused,
and went over to the side of his father, and died from a shot fired
by the mayor. It was a tragic and sensational ending, and Nick as
the revolutionary father rose to heights of eloquence. “Yes, to the
barricades! Farewell, my son--victim of bourgeois imperialism, repose
in peace! To-day is not the day to mourn the dead. It is the day of
battle and vengeance. Let us hasten, comrades, where the struggle
is more fierce, to avenge not only him, but all the obscure martyrs
fallen through capitalist greed.” And as the comrades rushed out
and the firing began off-stage, you would have thought you were in
La Scala--such storms of applause, such tears and raptures, so many
bouquets on the stage, so many “evvivas” and “bis!”
It was easy to smile at the naïveté of such a story. But when you saw
how deeply it moved the audience, then you had to stop and think, and
realize that it was the stuff of the lives of Italian peasants. If the
drama and its emotions were simple, it was because the reality was
the same. Even the conversion of the doctor might have happened--for,
after all, there were anarchist doctors, well known in Italy. And the
struggle against militarism--that was the religion and martyrdom of the
peasant all over Europe. Everything in the drama was true, except the
revolution--and what was needed to bring that, but the very fervor and
impulse of this peasant audience?
The family discussed all this as they drove home. It was late and the
children went sound asleep, but the grown-ups never wearied of talking,
and explaining matters to Cornelia. Vanzetti told more about that
wonderful fellow “Sacc’”--who was, in real life, exactly as he had been
on the stage. “He come America same year like me. Was young feller,
seventeen. Got brudder wit’, brudder no can stand, is too hard work,
musta go home Italy. Nick, he work water-boy, carry water for gang all
day. He work Hopedale, is beeg strike by foundry-shop--you read about
heem maybe. Police is rough, mooch bad. Nick he is on picket-line, get
hit plenty time. Is way for make red, make anarchista--you see, joosta
like dramma. Nick is not speaker, but gooda man for organize. Work now
by little shoe-factory, is good friend wit’ boss, do day-work, night
watchman too, make plenty money. But never he change, stand always by
worker. Some day it come odder beeg strike, Nonna, you see Nick Sacc’
be leader, he do joost what you see for make rivoluzione. He cannot
fear, is brave--like what you say--leone--lion.”
And Bart went on to tell about something which had happened a month
or two ago, when the young hero’s mettle had been tested. “He get
arrest--he musta go jail for hold meeting. It is protest for beeg
strike in copper country--you know maybe--Mesaba range--out West. Is
plenty rich people in Boston own copper-mine not like for have worker
hear how they beat people, t’row in jail. Try for stop meeting, shut-up
Nick and not let him tell about it.”
Cornelia said nothing: but a procession of “bluebloods” began to move
with stately dignity through her thoughts: the Paynes, the Shaws,
the Agassizs--yes, she knew “coppers,” and the owners thereof. She
remembered a scandal that had made awe-stricken whispers in the Sewing
Circle--an old man had died, and it appeared that for twenty years
or so he had been keeping eight thousand shares of his copper stocks
hidden under a dummy name in New York, signing the name of this dummy.
The executors of his estate failed to report these shares to the
government, to avoid paying taxes on them; they had been caught, and
some of the brightest legal lights of Boston were nearly disbarred.
Nobody had gone to jail, of course--only “Nick Sacc’,” who had tried to
tell the Italians of Massachusetts how the “copper kings” were beating
and killing their Michigan miners.
XI
The grapes on the Brini arbor had become dark purple globes, and had
been harvested and converted into “Dago red.” The leaves had turned,
first yellow and then brown, and had dropped off and been blown into
the corners of the garden. The cabbage and turnips were stored in the
cellar, and the tomato-vines grew mushy after frost, and then dry and
hard. All that beautiful garden was a wreck, and the sun was going
away on his long pilgrimage. Very soon Cornelia would be getting up by
lamplight, and shivering while she dressed, and being pinned up in her
shawl for the journey to the cordage-plant. Could she stand another of
these winters?
Betty was back at Miss Wilson’s school, and begging her grandmother
to come to Boston. Surely she ought to be taking part in the campaign
to reëlect Woodrow Wilson, who had kept us out of war, and said we
were too proud to fight. How Boston--the Boston of State Street and
fashionable society--loathed that phrase, and how they jeered and
raged in their _Transcript_! But there was another Boston, which had
crossed the seas a generation ago to escape the potato famine; it
had found an abundance of potatoes in New England, and had converted
them into a crop of young Irish voters, pledged to the worship of the
Virgin Mary and the extermination of the British lion. In vain did
“Pro Bono Publico” and “Hundred Percent American” write letters to the
_Transcript_, summoning the new world to the rescue of down-trodden
Belgium. Irish-Catholic Boston did not read the _Transcript_, and it
thronged to the polls and elected an Irish-Catholic mayor, who would
see to it that Irish and Germans and pacifists might hold all the
peace-meetings they wished, and parade through Park Street and spit
when they passed the Union Club.
Wilson was reëlected; and it seemed that the war-danger was over. He
would go on writing notes to the Germans, as he had been doing for
a year or two, and the Germans would go on ignoring them. Cornelia
decided that she would not be needed as a pacifist agitator, nor would
Vanzetti have to take refuge in Mexico, as he had made up his mind
to do in case America should enter the war. “Capitalist I will fight
some day,” said Bart, “but never will I kill German worker, Austrian
worker, for make good no banker bond.” Cornelia had not mentioned the
highly confidential subject of Boston high finance and its commitments
to the allied cause; but apparently the “reds” had their own sources
of information, for the “Cronaca Sovversiva” was full of talk on the
subject, and details of the intrigues of State Street and Wall Street.
XII
The first snow of the year was in the air, and Cornelia came hurrying
home in the darkness, with half an inch of snow melting upon her
shoulders. She was surprised to see a large limousine in front of
the Brini door, its two long streams of light making day in Suosso’s
Lane, and revealing the million-footed dance of the snowflakes. As she
came nearer, the door of the car opened and a bulky man stepped out;
Cornelia could not see his face, but his voice caused her to stop dead
in her white tracks. “Is that you, Mother?” It was Rupert Alvin!
In a certain musical comedy it is set forth how the founder of Columbus
Day landed in the new world, and the Indians came eagerly, inquiring,
“Are you Christopher Columbus?” When he admitted his identity, they
exclaimed, “At last we are discovered!” So now it was with Cornelia.
The jig was up, she knew--and took but a moment to get herself
together. “Hello, Rupert!” she said, with an air of nonchalance--there
are times when the Thornwell training comes in handy! She accepted
her son-in-law’s outstretched hand, and let him help her into the
limousine, where sat her eldest daughter, Deborah.
“Oh, Mother! Mother! How could you?” Yes, even the stately Mrs.
Rupert Alvin wept when she saw those bowed shoulders and that pitiful
working-woman’s shawl covered with a load of snow. She had snapped on
the light in the limousine; but Rupert snapped it off again quickly.
“Control yourself, Deborah,” he commanded--having in mind the
chauffeur, who would overhear, in spite of the glass partition.
“Mother, we want to have a private talk with you. Will you not please
come home with us--at least for a day or two?”
“I can’t, Rupert. I have a job.”
“Can’t you get excused temporarily?”
“One does not get excused from jobs, one gets fired.”
“But Mother, you have a little income from the estate!” It was Deborah,
breaking in.
“Wait, Deborah!” insisted the husband, again. “Mother, will you let us
take you to some hotel here in Plymouth, where we can discuss matters
quietly?”
“Certainly I will do that. But first I must tell my friends. They will
be expecting me to supper and will worry.”
“I will see to that,” said the man, quickly, and he got his majestic
bulk out of the car, and Cornelia wondered vaguely, was he afraid she
might make her escape? Was she being kidnaped? Inside her something
fluttered like a bird in a trap. “Don’t be caught! Don’t let them get
you!”
“Oh, Mother, you are all wet!” Deborah was lamenting. “Take off that