There were renewed streams of visitors later in the day, and at night a pleasant gathering at the home of the Giuntas, where we were shown, among other things, a very fine collection of old jewelry, inherited by our hostess from an aunt. In this company there were fewer people, and they were more select as village society goes than the large gathering at the Squadritos’ the night before. Antonio, being very popular in the village, and quite democratic despite his prosperity, had asked humble and pretentious alike to his home, and neither caste gave a sign, such as they would have given on the street, that they were not of the same strata. There are some very fine and delicate things in Italian social customs. Before we left we were bidden to a little garden party which Mrs. Giunta had planned for us on the afternoon of the next day. It was to be held on a scrap of an estate owned by the family, situated up the torrente a short distance.
Ina and Her Friends in Procession to the Church for Farewell Blessings
That night, after we had returned home, we were serenaded by a troupe of the village male vocalists, who wandered about until near dawn. The boy, Salvatore Vazzana, whom I have mentioned as singing in the church, sang “Luna, O Luna,” with a triple guitar accompaniment. The serenaders were then standing in the white moonlight at a point down by the torrente wall, so that in the stillness the clear, sweet voice and the throbbing, twanging compagnamento carried to every part of the town and came back faintly from the farther hills.
The Giuntas are a large family. All the present heads of separate households are the children of one aged woman, still living in Gualtieri, who has given birth to twenty-two, all told. Most of these are living, and nearly all have prospered. One is the only man in Italy who can stop a government train, even the Brindisi express, in any spot beside the track where he may appear. He shows his badge as inspector-general, and the train pulls up and takes him on. This attribute was related to us by every fresh group of people we met in the community, and he is considered by them to be a very wonderful man indeed. Our host, on the Sunday evening before mentioned, is one of the few men who own land about Gualtieri or in the district controlled by the Duke of Avarna.
Monday afternoon he and his wife and one or two other guests called for us at the house, and, accompanied by Antonio, Giovanina, Maria, Camela, little Ina, Giovanni, Jr., and Tono, we walked over the torrente path, in the blazing sun, to the gate of one of his farms of garden size. At the gate we met his brother, the village doctor, bound ahorse to see some patients higher up in the mountains. After looking over the splendidly cultivated place and inspecting the irrigation devices, very old and clumsy, but none the less effective, we sat down to a repast of fruits of more sorts than I can remember and name. The photograph of the party in the garden tells its own story. If all landowners in Italy dealt as mercifully with their tenants as our host appeared to deal with his people, there would be a different story to tell of southern Italy to-day.
Monday evening was a time of turmoil. First of all the great mass of trunks was got off to the station before dark. Then those who had delayed till the last minute to bring messages for friends and to bid us farewell appeared. I took all the messages, but drew the line at presents for relatives in Missouri, especially twenty-pound forms of cheese and five-gallon cans of olive oil. In the Squadrito household there was too much excitement for great grief, only now and then one of the members would break out with a wail and throw his or her arms around some one of those who were to go. By eleven o’clock everything was packed up, and Antonio mandatorily dismissed all the neighbors and sent everybody to bed. As the silence of the outer night crept into the house, there became audible the sobbing of the poor old mother as she lay thinking of the near separation from her own flesh and blood.
The heads of the weary and worn seemed scarcely to have touched their pillows before awakening voices rang in the house and street, the feeling of dread, chill exhaustion and discomfort that goes with sleep-breaking at one o’clock seemed to rest numbingly on every one. The tumultuous grief of the night before had given place to a sort of hushed woe. A short time to dress, a bite to eat, then into the dark, narrow streets with sleep-heavy eyes, to meet a crowd of hundreds come to see the party off. It is wonderful how little noise that concourse made as it moved out of the square, over the ancient bridge, to the beginning of the mountain road.
The parting with the mother and sisters occurred at the door of the Squadrito home. The mother was so overcome with her sorrow that, shaken with dry sobs and murmuring broken blessings, her daughters, unable to speak themselves from weeping, loosened her arms from about Antonio and Camela and bore her to her couch.
At the edge of the village a group of donkeys was in readiness. Here the crowd paused. Not more than seventy-five elected to walk the seven miles to the station and back, and there were few relatives among them. Antonio’s father was as completely broken down as if he was giving his favorite son and the others to the grave, instead of their departing for a happy land.