“Gina!” she called excitedly; “Dio mio! Gina!” A young woman, large and loosely molded, with a lusty baby clasped to her bared breast, appeared in the doorway. When she saw Anthony she dropped the baby into the elder's arms. “Poverino!” she cried; “come in the house, little mister.” She caught him by the arm, almost lifting him over the doorstep into a cool, dark interior. He had a brief glimpse of drying vegetables strung from the ceiling, of a waxen image of the virgin in faded pink silk finery against the wall; then, with closed eyes, he relaxed into the charge of soothing and skilled fingers. His head rested on a maternal arm while a soft bandage was fixed about his forehead.
“Ecco!” she ejaculated, her ministration successful. She led him to a rude couch upon the floor, and gently insisted upon his lying down. He attempted to thank her, but she laid her large, capable hand over his mouth, and he sank into an exhausted, semi-conscious rest. Once she bent over him, dampening the bandage, once he saw, against the light of the door, the shape, slim and beautiful as an angel, of the child. Outside a low, liquid murmur of voices continued without a break, strange and quieting.
He slept, and woke up refreshed, strengthened. The dusk had thickened in the room, the strings of vegetables were lost in the shadows, a dim oil lamp cast a feeble glow on rude walls. He lay motionless for a few, delightful seconds, folded in absolute peace, beneficent quietude. The amazing idea struck him that, perhaps, he had died, and that this was the eternal tranquillity of the hymn books, and he started vigorously to his feet in an absurd panic. The homely figure of a man entering dispelled the illusion—he was a commonplace Italian, one of the multitude who labored in the ditches of the country, stood aside in droves from the tracks as trains whirled past.
“What hit your head?” he asked, his mobile face displaying sympathetic interest, concern.
“A leaded stick,” Anthony explained. “I was knocked out, robbed.”
“Birbanti!” he laid a heavy hand upon Anthony's shoulder. “You feel better now, gia?” The latter, confused by such open attention, shook the hand from its friendly grip. “He was crazy,” he awkwardly explained; “and looking for a man who had killed his son; he wanted to get to California and I told him I had a ticket west.”
The laborer led Anthony to a room where a rude table was spread with homely fare—a great, rough loaf of bread, a deep bowl of steaming, green soup, flakey white cheese, and a bottle of purple wine. An open door faced the western sky, and the room was filled with the warm afterglow; it hung like a shining veil over the man, the still, maternal countenance of the woman, like an aureole about the baby now sleeping against her breast, and graced the russet countenance of an aged peasant. The child that Anthony had seen first, now in a scant white slip, seemed dipped in the gold of dreams.
As he consumed the savory soup, the creamy cheese and wine, the scene impressed him as strangely significant, familiar. He dismissed an idle effort of memory in order to consider the unfortunate aspect assumed by his immediate affairs. Concerning one thing he was determined—he would ask his father to assist him no further toward his western destination. He must himself pay for the initial error, together with all its consequences, of having followed Hartmann: California was his object, he would not write to Ellerton until his westward progress was once more assured.
Two courses were open to him—he could “beat” his way, getting meals when and how he was able, riding, when possible, on freight cars, doing casual jobs on the way. That he dismissed in favor of a second, which in the end, he judged, would prove more speedy. He would make his way to the nearest city, find employment in a public or private garage as chauffeur or mechanic, and, in a month at most, have the money necessary for the continuation of his journey.
The household conversed vigorously in their native idiom, giving his thoughts full freedom. The glow in the west faded, sank from the room, but, suddenly, he recognized the familiar quality of his surroundings. It resembled a picture of the Holy Family on the wall of his mother's room; the bare interior was the same, the rugged features of Joseph the carpenter, the brooding beauty of Mary. He almost laughed aloud at the absurd comparison of the exalted scene of Christ's infancy with this commonplace but kindly group, the laborer with soiled and callous hands and winestained mouth, the material young woman with the string of cheap blue beads.