J. “The place fairly hummed with the noise of machinery. Everything was going at full blast; women were making stockings and weaving underclothes; there must have been twenty of them at least stitching on Singer sewing-machines (the Singer people, by the way, sent a good subscription). The Queen went into several of the houses, and found them all in apple-pie order; Captain Bignami insists on perfect cleanliness.”
As they left the building a little girl, escaping from the guards who kept the people back from pressing too closely on the royal party, threw herself at the Queen’s feet and kissed the hem of her dress. Many petitions were made, some of them for perfectly unreasonable things.
“It is so hard,” said the Queen; “these poor people think I can give them whatever they ask me for.”
“That is not wonderful, considering all that your Majesty has given them.”
“The hospital will stand here;” Captain Bignami pointed out the site on the hillside above the village, commanding a magnificent view.
“You have heard,” it was whispered, “her Majesty names it the Elizabeth Griscom Hospital?”
“What a good idea!”
The Queen now disappeared, and the Americans returned to Messina. The Ambassador soon after took the ferry-boat for Reggio. Here he looked over the work with Ensign Wilcox, and later went with Mr. Chanler to Sbarre, to see the buildings put up there under Chanler’s direction. Timothy, the carpenter, writing to his wife, says:
“The Ambassador, Captain Belknap and several other gentlemen came. My men was working, though the mud was ears deep and one could not keep looking well. The Captain introduced me to Mr. Griscom, who highly commended me on the mill and its workings. They all took dinner with us that evening, and we was twelve at table. When we got good and started and was about half-way through, Mr. Chanler came in late and made thirteen. He did not mind. Some of the boys kicked but we laughed them out of it. Many funny stories was told. Finally broke up, singing America on the party’s leaving; it was raining very hard.”
“I had hoped,” writes Belknap, “that Mr. Roosevelt might see what was to me the best feature of the whole enterprise, the hundreds of men busily employed, earning good wages, making the air ring with the noise of their saws and hammers; but it would have been futile to try and keep the men at their places while he was passing. The men were in sight, to be sure, by the hundreds, fresh from their work, with tools in hand, nail aprons on. I doubt if much work was done the whole afternoon, notwithstanding that Mr. Roosevelt was in the Camp only an hour; yet the time lost was more than made up afterwards by the enthusiasm and stimulus that the visit gave.”