Mr. Broughton Brandenburg, as He Looked when He Passed through Ellis Island as an Immigrant
He pointed out to me a man, twenty years older than himself, heavily bearded, wearing the odd Russian cap, and with boots to his knees, whom he said had been cruelly treated by the Christians in his village, and had lost all his property through fire, as well as his wife and daughter. His only son was a conscript, and his father did not even know where he was, so he had borrowed enough money to come to America to begin life over again at the commencement of his old age.
By using great haste we got the party assembled and down to the Stonington Line pier in time to catch the night boat. I had intended to go with the Squadritos to Stonington, to see them entirely through to their destination, but an unforeseen obstacle arose in the form of Giuseppe Rota. Because he refused to be left alone to look after himself, I had been lugging him about all the latter end of the afternoon, and when we made our way down to the boat it suddenly occurred to me that if I went to Stonington I must either take him along, leave him standing in the darkness on the pier, or find some one to take care of him. It seemed easy enough to call a messenger boy, but when the uniformed mite arrived and I committed Giuseppe to his care to be taken back to 147 West Houston Street, Giuseppe raised his voice to heaven and bellowed like a bull, clinging about my shoulders and protesting that he was afraid I was sending him away to lose him, so that he might never see his uncle or any of his compadres from Avellino again, and if I did he vowed he would end all his suspense and suffering by plunging off into the dark river then and there, so I dismissed the messenger and took the party aboard, bade them good-bye for a short time, and took Giuseppe home again.
The group was quartered in the steerage compartments forward, which are often filled with two or three hundred immigrants, and inasmuch as they knew they would arrive in Stonington about two o’clock the next morning, they refused to try to get any sleep, but sat about talking and singing while the boat ploughed up the Sound. Ina, however, went to sleep in her mother’s arms, and her mother alternately laughed and cried, and hugged and kissed the sleeping child as she thought of the diminishing hours that separated her from her husband.
There were many other Italians aboard, all bound to the New England manufacturing towns, and they made merry on the way, and related the wonders which they had seen so far in the great new country.
At last the big whistle sounded in a long blast, and the boat slowed down. Soon she was bumping against the pier, and an officer was routing out the immigrants and getting them ashore.
Antonio and Giovanni Pulejo were the first on deck, and as they appeared at the end of the plank a wild shout went up from a black group in the shadow, and they heard the familiar voices of Giuseppe, Tommaso, and Carlino calling their names through the darkness.
Soon all were ashore and mingling in a wild scene of embracing and kissing, men and women, men and men, women and women. When Camela had Giuseppe’s arms about her at last, all she could do was to lay her tired head on his shoulder and weep, while Ina stood at one side gazing with wonder on the strange, handsome man who was her father. She was having her first sight of him that she could remember, and preferred to take as good a survey as she could get in the dim light, from a point outside of the zone of embraces. When she had a chance she said to Concetta,
“I thought he was three times bigger than that, but he is nice.”
At last the party formed a procession, with Antonio and his happy wife in the lead, and marched up from the dock to the substantial old house on Water Street, on the first floor of which, fronting on the street, Antonio had his barber shop. He found that during his absence his brothers had had a disagreement about affairs in the shop, and Carlino had gone off to work for another barber. Carlino’s welcome, while warm enough, had a certain bitter tang in it which was the result of his acquired disdain of anything Italian, and his lack of sympathy for the things at home which made up the principal subject of interest in the family party just then. He has pronounced himself as all-American, and says he will never go back to Italy, no matter what happens, not even for a visit.