FATE threw Giuseppe in my way and caused me to be the only soul on the Portland boat whom he could make understand. Therefore, Giuseppe poured out all his griefs to me as to a brother.
It came to pass in this wise. I was sitting on the horrible magenta plush settee-thing in the after cabin, looking at nothing at all and thinking luxuriously about the same, when this coatless Italian, this son of an out-worn civilization, drifted into my field of vision and came to anchor beside me on the plush. I noticed him particularly because he was very young and unusually good-looking, and because his green sweater and tan shoes made a startling color-scheme with the magenta. He was full-faced and rubicund, also horny-handed, heavy-shouldered, and oppressed with woe. His attitude was dejection itself, and he sighed frequently.
"Buon giorno," I ventured in my best Ollendorff, "conte sta?"
No answer—just a grunt and downcast glances.
"Parlate Italiano?" I persisted, not to be by any means so easily discouraged. Another grunt.
"Nothing doing here!" thought I to myself. "Better let him alone, I guess!" So saying, I crossed over to one of the little polished tables and pulled out a stale newspaper. Giuseppe eyed me half despairingly, half suspiciously. I was an American and therefore rich—all Americans are rich!—and so, of course, his inborn enemy; but none the less it seemed evident I could talk a few words of his native tongue, and that was something.
Presently he came and sat down opposite me at the table.
"Signore," he blurted out abruptly, "you change-a feefty dollar? You change-a feefty dollar bill, eh?"
I looked up, not a little surprised.
"Fifty dollars?" I queried. "You want me to change fifty dollars? Sorry, amico, but I haven't got that much with me—non posso!"
He shrugged his shoulders incredulously.
"Si, si!" he persisted. "You change-a heem all right! You reech-a mans!"
I couldn't help smiling at that. The idea of my being a rich man was a self-evident absurdity.
"Non posso, I tell you!" I retorted. "I can't do it!" With that I opened the flaps of my all but empty pocket-book for his inspection. Evidently such evidence bore no weight with him, for
"Si, si!" he still reiterated irritatingly. "You reech-a mans! Wha' for you no change-a heem?"
"Let's look at your fifty!" I exclaimed, beginning to grow interested in such persistence. "Show me la moneta!"
From the depths of his sub-sweater region he dredged up a very much folded bill. Only the fifty-dollar mark was visible, but the faded dirty yellow told the tale and explained Giuseppe's eagerness. I hated to corroborate the poor devil's only too well-founded suspicions.
"Let's look!" I urged. "Show me some more, più, più!"
He grudgingly unfolded the bill and spread it on the polished table-top. It read: "Confederate States of America ... 1863." Jeff Davis' portrait graced both sides. Its probable value—as a curiosity—might have been ten cents.
"See here, amico," I ventured hesitatingly, "I'm sorry, but that's no good—no good, you understand? Non vale niente—not worth a cent! Confederate money, very old, too old—troppo vecchia! Capite? You understand?"
"Wha' you say? 'S too old, no good-a? Ah-h-h! Corpo di Bacco! My feefty dollar no good? Iddio! Wha's matter my feefty dollar?"
He squared his jaw, frowned ominously, and knotted his fist.
"It's too old, I tell you—Confederate! See here, don't you know what Confederate is? No? ... Well, anyway, it's no good—non vale nemmeno un soldo—not worth a cent!"
"Ah, ha! Falsa moneta? My feefty dollar falsa? I don' know wha' you mean, Confederata—p'raps he's counterfeit-a, eh?"
"No, not false money, only Confederate!" ... Then, to myself: "Hang it all! How the deuce am I going to teach him United States history?—Hullo, there, steward, wait a minute, will you? This man here wants to show you something. Here, amico, show this signore what you've got!"
The steward approached, a lean, thin-blooded type from the Maine coast, leathery-skinned and shifty-eyed. The offspring of orthodox parents and a "superior civilization," he contrasted unfavorably with the illiterate peasant's son, in whose veins still bounded the full red tide of southern life, Giuseppe handed him the bill, half suspiciously.
"No good," he passed his verdict also, "not wuth a tinker's dam!"
Giuseppe understood the tone, if not the words.
"Oh misericordia!" he groaned, now thoroughly convinced, and covered his eyes with his rough hands. "Madre di Dio!—my feefty dollar no good! Jesucristo!" A tear fell on the table-top. The steward walked away with a yellow-toothed grin.
"Serves him right!" he sent back at me like a Parthian shot as he ascended the stairs. "They ain't nuthin' too bad fer them darn Dagos!"
In a minute Giuseppe looked up again, and his black eyes were blazing.
"By G—, meester, eef I ever catch-a the mans that geeve me this-a bill, then—Z-?-?-?-?-??" His horny forefinger rasped sharply across my throat. "Both ear I cut heem, one to other! Now my moglie, my woman, yessir, she go' starve-die—mor a fam! By G—, I keel that-a mans! I keel him so queeck he never know w'at hit-a heem, yessir!"
"How'd it happen?" I queried, anxious to divert him. "Quando? Tell me all about it, amico."
"In one saloon, I take-a two t'ree bicchiere, straniero he come een, he say, 'You change-a feefty? Yes?' Well, he say he pay all-a drinks if I change-a this bill, si signore! That's w'at he say! I have seexty dollar, just fineesh five month-a job, dam' hard work, too, yessir! He have fold-a bill, I see only numero feefty, so he ban' me da bill an' I geeve heem forty-nine dollar, quaranta-nove, si signore! Then he pay two t'ree drink an' go 'way queek, say, 'Excuse me, minute,' an' go 'way an' never come-a back! Eef I find-a that mans... Bing!" This time the horny forefinger was a revolver.
"Well, well, that's too bad!" I murmured soothingly, for Giuseppe had become disquietingly realistic. "That's hard luck! And what were you going to do with the money? What made you carry so much? Were you going to buy something, comprare qualchecosa?"
"No, no, nient' afatto! Not-a use for mysel'! No sir, niente per me! For my moglie, my woman, you un'erstand, my bambini in Italia—I got-a t'ree bambini, yessir, an' Lucia, la moglie, all in Campodoglio, near-a Napoli—oh be-e-eautiful countree, si signore!"
"Naples? Yes, that's fine!" I assented. "Motto bello!"
"Tha's right! Bellissimo! Beeg mountain, gran' field, grape-a-vine, fire an' fumo come out-a top! Si signore, tha's da mouth of hell, you call it. Inferno, si! Da priest, he tol' me you go that-a way down to Inferno, si signore! An' it's gran' countree! My t'ree bambini verree fine bambini, yessir!" Giuseppe was warming up; his hand was beginning to make circles. "One-a bambino he go to scuola, one he babee, one he come-a pretty soon, io credo. La moglie she's sick too, no work-a now. I want 'em all come America, yessir!
"W'en I first come here I save-a la moneta one month, sen' home, tell 'er save it, come-a here too! But she's take-a that moneta an' spen' him all per vivere, to live on, eh? Well, then I no send any more, only leetle bit ev'ry month, an' da rest I save, me mysel'—getta lot-a moneta, then send heem all together, capite? So then she can come-a, bring bambini, madre, tutta la famiglia. So I work-a five month, shobbel like hell! Look-a da hand!"
He thrust out his palms. They were calloused like a camel's knees, in spots, and cracked and raw, the worst looking pair of hands I ever want to see.
"Yessir!" he continued. "I work-a like hell! Five month, signore, cinque mes'. Save all I can, seexty dollar, beeg roll-a moneta! I goin' sen' feefty dollar to la moglie in Campodoglio; everythin' all ready. All-a ready send la moneta, moglie all-a ready come America, an' bring bambini, madre, all family! Then 1, big sciocco, big fool-a mans, go for celebrate in saloon, take-a two t'ree bicchiere... ecco, I loose-a forty-nine dollar, my moglie she stay in Italia, she no work, no come here, she starve-die p'raps, oh Madre di Dio!"
His teeth glinted in a grimace of pain, and his hard fist smote the table-top.
"And where are you going now?" I asked. "What are you going to do?"
"Oh, I gotta 'nother job up there," with a vague wave of the hand, "up dere by my brother, in Sportolan' (Portland). He's no real-a brother, no carnale—but, w'at you call? Brother-in-law? Si, tha's right! Brother-law! I goin' work again, make-a some more! But I 'fraid my moglie she's goin' starve-die 'fore I getta her America! Ed i bambini! Wat's become my bambini?"
His mood had changed again. He was only a big child himself, and no emotion could last long in that great high-arching breast.
"Ecco, amico mio!" said I, leaning over the table. "Take this to help get the bella moglie here in time!" and I pressed a silver half-dollar into the horny palm.
"No, no, signore!" he stammered, with a broad smile of amazement and pleasure. "No, no, not-a for me, no, grazie! no per me!"
"For la Lucia!" I exclaimed, "and for the little ones in Campodoglio!"
"Grazie, mille grazie!" he murmured. "For la bella Lucia, si, not-a for me!" and his thick fingers closed over the coin.
He brooded a moment in silence, then queried, as if struck by a new and hopeful idea,
"My feefty dollar not falsa, eh?"
"No, not false—only too old—I can't explain, but it's no good, that's all!"
"But no falsa, no counterfeit-a?" he insisted.
"No, not counterfeit! " I answered, smiling.
"Eef I pass-a heem they no arrest-a me? No putta me in la prigione?"
"I hardly think so."
"Ecco! Now I know what I do! I pass-a heem on some Italiano mans, me! No on an Americano; Italiano mans! Americano know w'at 'tis—Italiano take-a heem all right! I hold-a heem same way—only show da numero. Italiano don't know w'at is Confederata! He pass-a heem on un altro, an' he pass-a heem again, an' so on, all-a time! No hurt-a nobody!" He smiled beatifically. His clouds were all rolling away. I hated to remonstrate, but felt a feeble sense of duty urging me.
"Better not!" I objected. "Suppose the man you pass it on does this-a way to you?" My forefinger circled my own throat.
"Ah!" a lofty wave of the hand, "soon's I getta my feefty good dollar I take-a de boat to New York again—then I go Italia, me, getta la moglie mysel'! Never go Sportolan', no sir!"
He smiled again, even more joyously. His eyes beheld once more prophetically the olive-groves and vine-clad slopes of old Vesuvius. There, half-hidden on the flanks of the great mountain, clung his humble, white-washed cabin, and in the doorway a girlish figure and other smaller ones stood waiting him. I felt that argument would not avail, and so forbore.
"Signore—" he said, after a moment's silence, rising from the table,—"Signore, I t'ank you—grazie, mille grazie, and—addio!"
He stretched forth his toil-calloused hand. I shook it warmly.
"Addio, amico, and good luck—buona fortuna! My best love to la Lucia when you see her again! Addio!"
Giuseppe smiled for the third time, flamboyantly, and was gone. His squared shoulders and confident step spoke volumes as he disappeared up the companionway.
In a few minutes I too went on deck. The boat was just passing Peak's Island on its way into Portland Harbor, and I saw Giuseppe no more, but his influence was still upon me. I was fatally corrupted; my last scruple had quite faded out, and I hoped frankly that he'd manage to pass that bill to someone better able to bear up under its false promises—to someone who did not have a wife and three babies (and nothing else!) in a whitewashed cabin among the vines of Campodoglio.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1936, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 87 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse