The parsonage hall was full of profughi. One had come for a bed, one for a blanket, one for a dress. The Canon had promised to show me the church. As he led the way there, his wife came after him to ask a last question.
“May I give Ginocchio a small bed?”
“What has he had?” asked the Canon.
“Oh, a great deal; but he has nine children, and they only have two beds between them all.”
“Then let him have it!”
The good earnest face of the Canon’s wife, frowning slightly with perplexity, looking out of the parsonage door, as the Canon and I hurried off through the pretty garden to the English church, is the last picture of Palermo that remains! The garden was full of English flowers, blooming luxuriantly side by side with those famous orange trees whose blossoms perfumed the air.
“Blue sky arching o’er me,
Keen winds piercing through me,
Waves lapping my feet—
White clouds sailing swiftly,
Bright sun laughing roundly—
O, Earth, thou art sweet.”
(Helen Lee.)
XIV
MR. ROOSEVELT AT MESSINA
Tuesday, the sixth of April, six weeks after work began at the American camp, the German East African steamer “Admiral,” having on board Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Griscom and Captain Belknap, entered the harbor of Messina. More than a month before, on the fourth of March, Mr. Roosevelt’s term of office as President of the United States came to an end. The last months of a retiring president are always arduous, and Mr. Roosevelt must have found them peculiarly so. Besides the endless knotting up of the ordinary executive business, there was all the extra labor connected with the Italian Relief. Now he was off for a holiday in the African jungle. On his way, he looked in at Messina, to see how things were going on at the Camp. Work had been pushed at the Mosella, at Reggio, Sbarre, Palmi, Ali, all along the line; the rumor that Mr. Roosevelt was coming spurred every man to his best pace.
“We must have something worth while to show him!” said Belknap.