“Thank you, Miss,” answered the artist. “I love to work. I came to America to work and now I shall go out, perhaps to New York.” His handsome face was alight with happiness.
“Oh, no, no, no!” exclaimed both women.
“Not to New York, Benato,” implored Mrs. Marcusi. “They might take you away on the ship.”
“Madam,” said Dr. Hale in his best professional tone, “I shall give him a certificate, a paper, you know, that will protect him from interference.”
At that the older woman fell upon her knees and grasped the doctor’s hand to press it to her lips.
“T’ank you! T’ank you!” she sobbed. “Benato is vera good boy. He work hard. He must stay——”
“He will, he will,” Dr. Hale checked her outburst, “and we are going to see about bringing your son back, also,” he told the old mother. This occasioned another shower of kisses for the doctor’s hands; and their words piled up like little firecrackers that kept popping from Italian into a kind of English, the only kind excited old Italian women could give utterance to.
Benato was talking quietly to Nicky. He had his hand affectionately upon the boy’s shoulder, and he kept urging him to do something that Nicky was objecting to.
Cara and Babs were watching them while Dr. Hale was talking to the women. Finally Benato spoke.
“Did you know that Nicky can carve also?” he asked the girls, smiling broadly as he spoke to them.