Boston a novel
tune many times for Bart, under circumstances that would bring tears
into the eyes of all who heard it.
XII
They climbed Castle Hill, and picked a few of the wild flowers, and
watched the sail-boats on the bay. It was a parting for Betty and Bart,
and both of them were moved, though Bart said, “Maybe I come see you in
Europe pretty soon. I think I not be let in this countree mooch time;
get shoore catched and sended home. Pretty soon it come trooble in
Italy, maybe rivoluzione--make American afraid for have Italian here.”
“Well, you won’t mind going back to Italy.” It was Betty speaking.
“Shoore not, get free tickets, mooch pleas-èd. I glad for be lonely
man, no family for suffer. I fraid for man like Vincenzo, like Nick
Sacc’--they catch heem, send away--mooch trooble for family. Come mooch
spy--come spy in cloob in East Boston--all time spy watch. But he not
tell true story, tell bombe, make people hate anarchista.”
Vanzetti paused, and watched the sail-boats for a while. “Sooch a
lovely place, is hard to t’ink so ugly thing can be in the world. You
meet Yankee man, he is a good feller; you laugh, you make joke, he is
please, he think wop is all right, pretty good. But next day he take
you, put you in jail, beat you with rubber hose, hang you up by finger,
torture you terrible. Is hard to believe, but it happens all time,
plenty fellers in cloob can tell. I say, I not give up, not stand sooch
thing, I fight. I keep gun all the time now.” And Bart patted his hip,
where a large lump was evident.
“Have you shot that gun off yet?” inquired Betty.
“Shoore, I take it in wood, I practice, he shoot pretty good.”
“Well, it’s not only the gun, it’s the gunner. You need a lot of
practice, Bart, if you’re going to shoot it out with the police.” It
was Betty again, and her grandmother was dismayed. Where on earth did
she pick up slang--“shoot it out!” And where had she acquired that
matter-of-fact smile, discussing the mad idea of resisting arrest?
Truly, the new generation was traveling fast, and their elders had to
“keep on the jump.”
Cornelia knew that if you objected to what the new generation did or
said, it would refrain from arguing with you, but would relegate you
to the storeroom of the “has-beens,” and forbear to take you in its
confidence. But in her own head she pondered and worried. Betty’s
pacifist convictions had apparently not been able to stand the strain
of that “May Day riot” in Boston.
One of the children came up to report that there were men at the
house to see Bart. There were two Italians with a motorcycle and a
side-car. Cornelia recollected their faces, from the night of the
dramatic performance in Stoughton. She was introduced to them again,
Coacci and Orciani, workingmen and anarchist propagandists. The former
had just recently been arrested for deportation, and was now under a
thousand-dollar bond. They talked in Italian, and then drove off, and
Bart brought in from another room a package which the two had left; he
laughed and told Betty and Cornelia that it was a bomb, and these two
had advised him not to let the strange Yankee ladies into the secret,
because, after all, who could say they might not be spies?
The package was big enough for a bomb, to blow up a whole
cordage-plant. It was heavy; and when Bart cut the string and opened
it, they saw what his joke meant--it contained what he liked to call
“mental dinnameet.” There were a dozen copies of a book, bound in red
paper covers, brilliant enough to send a man to jail for ten years
in Massachusetts. Bart handled the books with loving pride, because
they were published by the “Gruppo Autonomo di East Boston,” and he
had helped raise the money to make the enterprise possible. “Faccia à
Faccia col Nemico” was the title, “Face to Face with the Enemy.” It was
a series of biographies of the anarchist martyrs, with their pictures.
It was needed in this crisis, to remind the comrades how the heroes of
past times had been able to withstand torture and persecution, almost
as bad as the White Terror in America. Bart had taken orders for this
book among the Plymouth comrades, and now he said, “I take heem queeck,
I get him distriboot, never let policeman catch heem, giammai!”
XIII
Cornelia went back to Boston to raise funds for the families of
the May Day victims; while Betty and Cousin Letitia went to New
York, accompanied by Deborah, and with a proper amount of tears and
handkerchief-waving were started on their grand tour. The Thornwell
clan breathed a sigh of relief when the young madcap was actually at
sea.
For the first month it seemed all right. Betty was in London. “And
Mother,” she wrote, “it is quite like Boston; New England is really
Old England. I look out of my hotel window and see thousands of brick
buildings stained with smoke, and chimney-pots and dormer-windows
through a haze--I might be looking north from Beacon Hill. I really do
not see that one has to leave Boston to get culture, but I am doing
what you wish. We are going to-night to study the British labor party
at a big mass-meeting in Albert Hall. I am assured that the police
will not club the audience as it comes out. It was kind of you not to
tell Aunt Letitia too much about my ‘redness’; she is so gentle and
innocent, everything is educational to her. I am going to learn a lot,
and only hope you and father won’t mind if I study live people instead
of dead ones.”
That was a hint of trouble; but it was nothing to what came a week
later from Cousin Letitia. “Dear Cousin Deborah: We are having a _most
delightful_ time in London--I will _never_ be able to find words
to express my gratitude to _you_ and _Cousin Rupert_ for affording
me this greatest and _undreamed_ of opportunity--for such it was,
I assure you--though perhaps in some _secret_ corner of my soul I
did cherish the _dream_. Betty is the _dearest_ child, and _most_
companionable, and tractable in every way. To add to the _perfection_
of our happiness, who should turn up in London yesterday but dear Aunt
Cornelia Thornwell! It was Betty who saw her, in the lobby of our
hotel. ‘It is _Grannie_!’ she exclaimed; and at first I could hardly
believe my _eye-sight_. _Imagine_ such a coincidence--here in far-off
London! _Truly_ the world _is_ getting smaller. She was called over
here unexpectedly upon business. We have decided to go to Paris, and
put off seeing London Bridge and the Tower until later.”
And then, a week after that, another letter from Betty. “I hope you
and Father will not be too much annoyed by Grannie’s following us
to Europe. She says she just got too lonesome and couldn’t stand
it. The older generation is very stubborn, I find, and difficult to
control. I will try hard to keep her out of trouble. She has letters of
introduction to leading statesmen, but we are going to see the Eiffel
Tower first, so as to be regular tourists. It was very good of you to
leave our itinerary to our own choice, and we are availing ourselves
of this freedom. Next week we leave for Buda-Pesth. There are some
officials whom Grannie wishes to meet, and they may not be there long,
because governments change swiftly in Europe nowadays. Cousin Letitia
has read that there are very fine gypsy orchestras in Hungary, and this
thrills her repressed Puritan soul. I hope you and Father will not
blame this poor dear lady for anything that may go wrong with our tour,
because she is really as good as gold, though too naïve to cope with
the present world situation. She is invited to lunch with a prominent
editor or member of the house of deputies, and it does not occur to her
to ask whether he is royalist or communist. She says, ‘I suppose it is
not the custom for these European men to trim their beards or their
finger-nails.’ But do not worry about us, because we are learning a
great deal.”
That letter alarmed Deborah, but it seemed worse yet when Rupert came
home that evening and read it and told her about Hungary. There had
been a Bolshevik revolution in that country, and the “officials” whom
Cornelia and Betty were going to meet were no doubt some blood-thirsty
“commissars,” Jews and ex-convicts who were slaughtering the men and
nationalizing the women of several empires. Rupert knew all about it,
because he had before him a proposition for financing the overthrow of
these “officials” in the interest of European stability; he had that
very day been investigating the prospects for having the bonds of a new
counter-revolutionary government absorbed by the Hungarian population
of New England. He had lunched with a man who had explained the details
of the plan, and had prepared a schedule of the subsidies required
to obtain the support of the Hungarian-American press. The world was
growing more and more complicated, and the tasks of a leader of high
finance made him sit up nights and study geography.
“My God,” said the tormented father, “I suppose there’s only one thing
left--they’ll be going to Russia!” Which showed what a great mind he
had. For two weeks later came another communication from Mistress
Betty, as follows:
“I suppose you poor dears are going to be truly shocked by this
news, and I am sorry, but there is no helping it. Grannie and I are
leaving to-morrow for Saratov, which is in Southern Russia. It is
the place where that crazy yarn about the nationalizing of women
got its start, and we are going to see for ourselves. We had the
extraordinary good fortune to run into a man whose head Grannie
bandaged up after it was broken by the police in the Plymouth
cordage strike. Now he is to take charge of the railroads in a
province as big as the whole of New England, and says he has an
underground way to get through the allied lines without danger. It
is just like Boston here, you can do anything if you have money.
It is going to be a most educational experience, and you must not
worry about us. The world is changing rapidly, and nothing could be
more important than to watch the new political forms in the act of
evolving. When these changes come to America, somebody will have to
understand them.
“Please do not worry about Cousin Letitia, who is perfectly safe
and happy in Buda-Pesth. We have taken the precaution to introduce
her to influential people on both sides, so she will be all right
whichever comes out on top. Meantime she is handing out half
loaves of bread to the starving children of war-refugees. That
is charity, and she understands it. In the evenings she hears a
gypsy orchestra, in company with an elderly Hungarian playwright
who speaks fluent English, and has become completely absorbed in
the maiden-lady from Boston. I think she is the first one he ever
met, and he has the idea she will be wonderful in a play; the only
trouble is that European audiences would consider it a fairy-tale.
I do hope you will not blame Cousin Letitia because of Grannie. She
could not possibly have the idea there is anything wrong about a
grandmother. When she was in school, she was taught to admire the
revolutionary leaders of New England, and now that she meets those
in Europe, she finds them highly educated men.
“We only plan to stay in Russia one or two months. Grannie has
promised to return in the fall, to teach a course in the causes of
modern war at the labor college which will be opened in Boston if
the police do not smash it. I expect to come back to Buda-Pesth
and take a job with some relief organization--any one that will
accept a person who has been in Russia. At present the Interallied
Food Mission is refusing all aid to the starving children of Red
Hungary. That is Mr. Herbert Hoover’s amiable method of bringing
back the Whites, and it should earn him everlasting infamy in