The mother looked inquiringly at the boy.
“It’s no use trying. Nobody knows where or when,” he explained. “They don’t want a lot of mothers and sisters fussing over the men,” he added teasingly.
Little Bianca told me how she and her mother slipped past all the sentinels at the station the next morning and ran along the embankment outside the railroad yards where the long line of cattle-cars packed with soldiers was waiting.
“They know us pretty well in the regiment by this time,” she laughed. “I heard them say as we ran along the cars looking for ’Rico, ‘See! There’s Maironi’s mother and the little Maironi! Of course, they would come somehow!’... We gave them the roses you brought yesterday—you don’t mind? They loved them so—and said such nice things.” Bianca paused to laugh and blush at the pretty speeches which the soldiers had made, then ran on: “Poor boys, they’ll soon be where they can’t get flowers and cakes.... Then we found ’Rico at last and gave him the things just as the train started. He was so glad to see us! Poor ’Rico had such a cough, and he looked quite badly; he doesn’t know how to take care of himself. Mother is always scolding him for being so careless—boys are all like that, you know!... There was such a noise! We ran along beside the train, oh, a long way, until we came to a deep ditch—we couldn’t jump that! And they cheered us, all the soldiers in the cars; they looked so queer, jammed in the cattle-cars with the straw, just like the horses. Enrico’s captain gave us a salute, too. I wonder where they are now.” She paused in her rapid talk for a sombre moment, then began excitedly: “Don’t you want to see my Red Cross dress? It’s so pretty! I have just got it.”
She ran up-stairs to put on her nurse’s uniform; presently the signora came into the room. She was dressed all in black and her face was very pale. She nodded and spoke in a dull, lifeless voice.
“Bianca told you? He wanted me to thank you for the cigarettes. He was not very well—he was suffering, I could see that.”
“Nothing worse than a cold,” I suggested.
“I must see him again!” she cried suddenly, passionately, “just once, once more—before—” Her voice died out in a whisper. Bianca, who had come back in her little white dress, took up the signora’s unfinished sentence with a frown:
“Of course, we shall see him again, mamma! Didn’t he promise to write us where they sent him?” She turned to me, impetuous, demanding, true little woman of her race. “You know, I shall go up north, too, to one of the hospitals, and mamma will go with me. Then we’ll find Enrico. Won’t we, mother?”