The little acrobat: a story of Italy

by Janie Prichard Duggan

Mrs. Bishop overheard the word “Egypt” and sighed.

The next day was Sunday and an important festival, being the day of San Lorenzo. A great harvest of soldi was expected, as peasants from all the mountain villages would come trooping in that day, to go to high mass in the church under the old mountain firs, and to take part in the procession of the “saints” in the afternoon. So there was, of course, to be a performance in the tent that day, but in the afternoon this time, just after the procession, instead of in the evening, when everybody would be tired or toiling homeward along the dark mountain ways. As there was nothing for him to do about the tent, however, until five o’clock should boom from the stone tower of the church, Natale made good use of his legs during the whole day, for there was much to see.

Betty Bishop had tossed a penny into his hands down over the garden palings that very Sunday morning. Perhaps she was thinking of some little child at home in England who would be clamoring for a penny to carry to Sunday school, but Natale had no thought of dropping his precious two soldi into the priest’s collecting bag in the church.

The piazza was too fascinating a place to be passed by, when one held a penny of his own fast in his fist. With the dogs on each side of him, therefore, Natale spent most of the day above in the town, going from booth to booth, and in fancy spending his money over and over again. There were sweets of various kinds offered for sale on the little tables along the steep, narrow streets, and booths of everything from coarse stuffs and ready-made clothing to breastpins of gay mosaic work and filigree rings.

Everywhere Natale was jostled by the peasants who all through the morning had flocked to the town, dressed in their best clothes and wearing holiday looks on their faces. The women and girls wore gay kerchiefs on their heads, with brilliant borderings and flowing ends, while even the men wore bits of vivid color in the shape of gorgeous neck scarfs spread over their white shirt fronts. Mingled with these walked the lords and ladies of a higher class dressed according to the fashion plates of Paris, and seeming to enjoy the hot sunshine and the gay restiveness of the multitude as much as the plainer folk. All day the frolic and prayers and the music of the town band and the church organ went on in the little town, till mid-afternoon, when there fell a hush over all and a great expectation.

Natale had not a very good place from which to see the procession pass, for he stood between a very stout peasant woman and a visiting priest in his full black gown. Still, he managed to peer from under their elbows without attracting their attention, and he was content, holding securely in one hand, meanwhile, the balloon whistle which he had finally purchased with his penny. The pretty red bubble of rubber had not yet burst, and Natale was happy in its possession. The handful of crisp wafers flavored with anise seed, which he had almost bought—so very foolish he had been—would have been eaten long ere this, and it would be as if he had never had a penny of his own tossed over the fence to him by a smiling young lady, but now he still had the whistle!

On they came, the straggling company of men and boys, dressed in white gowns and cowls, and bearing huge lighted candles in their hands. Natale thought he would like to have been one of the two boys bearing the immense candlesticks of brass; yet, after all, the candlesticks must be very heavy, and they were propped very uncomfortably on the little boys’ stomachs, and very red and perspiring were the little boys’ faces.

Natale thought the men’s feet ugly and clumsy, showing below the white gowns, and their harsh, chanting voices made him shiver. But he could not follow the awkward marching steps of the peasants with laughing looks as some of the onlookers were doing, for here, behind the banners and crucifixes, came two very curious-looking objects.

“Ecco! the dead saints!” he exclaimed softly to himself. “How heavy they must be in the glass boxes on the men’s shoulders. Yet our Antonio Bisbini would never bend so under a small box as those men do. Ah! but the little girls are pretty, so pretty in their white veils, and scattering flowers before the saints.”

The crowd closed in upon the end of the procession now, and Natale could see no more, as he was nearly overturned where he stood. After a breathless moment or two, he found himself left in peace and quiet under the great old fir trees in front of the church, with the crowd all gone and Nicro and Bianco with them.