“Ah, Santissima Maria!” cried a poor old woman with tear-worn eyes, “you have nothing, not even a drum, to do you honor! Ah! the band that went before you a year ago! The musicians are all dead. I lost my two daughters. They are under the ruins; may I meet them in Paradise! See, this is my husband; he is blind; we two old ones were saved; all the children and the grandchildren were taken.”
As the figure of the Christ passed, the old blind man fell on his knees, stretching out his arms and crying in a terrible voice: “Santissimo padre, help us, help us!”
“This is the first real Sunday we have had at Camp,” said the doctor that evening.
No one was ever obliged, or even asked, to work on Sunday, I think; our men had caught the fever of work, it was the labor microbe that pushed them on. The desolate people, the sad women with their wonderful children, who came from their little wretched huts and looked with longing eyes at the baracche Americane, stirred and stimulated our men to toil through the bitter days of rain, and the dreadful days of wind, when the pestilential dust of the city, that vast charnel house, was driven into the eyes and throat.
Easter Monday was a festa, and the men did not work. Some of the carpenters went for a long bicycle ride. Signor Donati appeared at breakfast in a fine sportsmanlike costume with gaiters, cartridge belt and game bag. We heard him blazing away all day with his gun. He shot one swallow. The tiny scrap of a bird was brought in on a plate at dinner, offered to me, then to the Captain, and finally sent to Brofferio, who was ill in his room.
At the Villaggio Regina Elena there was a pretty ceremony that Easter Monday. On Sunday a poor blind woman, Giuseppa Lo Verde, gave birth to a little girl, the first child born in the Queen’s village. The child was baptized the next day and given the name of Elena. The ceremony took place at the tiny church the dear sailors built. Captain Bignami holding the little one in his arms at the baptismal font.
One of the most popular places in the Camp was Dr. Donelson’s office, a tiny surgery, not more than eight feet square. The poor people had soon found him out—the unofficial work of this good physician deserves a whole chapter to itself. The doctor’s patients were not ungrateful; that Easter he had as thank offering a basket of golden citrons; a blue heron, warranted “good eating,” a handful of coppers from Zia Maddalena, whose grandchild he had cured. Though little was said of illness, there was plenty of it about. I was warned not to go near certain hovels, where scarlet fever was raging. The doctor was a daily visitor here; he nursed and tended the little children with a tenderness they will not forget. His office was rarely empty; during the half hour before dinner, when work for the day was over, the officers gathered here to talk things over. Sometimes the tinkle of Spofford’s guitar or the notes of the doctor’s flute came from the little office, with its neat shelves of bottles and faint odor of carbolic acid.
On Monday evening, wishing to consult the doctor about a new installment of clothing, I went to his door. There were voices in the office; the doctor had a patient, so I sat down outside to wait. It was a perfect evening; the sky was still flushed with sunset, the first star stood over the tall spire of the little Gothic church at the campo santo. The dusk fell softly; on the heights above Messina, the outlines of the old Saracen fort were blurred in the violet afterglow. The tramp of the sentinel marked time. Another sound broke the twilight stillness, the sound of the royal march played by a band. Where could it come from? In all Messina there had not been found so much as a drum for the procession. The music came nearer and nearer, a new sound mingled with it, the sound of voices singing and cheering. Lanterns were brought out, the mess-room door thrown open. By the light that streamed out I saw a cab, decked with green branches, drawn by a horse gay with white ostrich plumes. Two of our carpenters sat in the cab, which was followed by a pair of ox-carts, filled with chairs occupied by the carpenters’ guests. The three vehicles were surrounded by a crowd of people, singing and cheering.
“Long live the American carpenters!”
Some of our men had spent the day at a neighboring village, that had escaped the earthquake; they had been escorted home by the whole population. The band departed playing the merry march; the sound grew fainter and fainter in the distance. A bright fire lighted up the dark interior of the little shanty, opposite the Camp, built by Zia Maddalena and Cousin Sofia; the tinkle of Spofford’s guitar repeated the gay notes of the march—how good it was to hear the joyous sounds!