A Round Dozen

by Susan Coolidge

"We're just like orphans in a book," sobbed Pauline at last, while Molly watered Matilda's best frock with salt tears. The signora had a specially nice supper that night, and petted them a great deal, but they were very homesick for mamma, and cried themselves to sleep.

Matters seemed brighter when they woke up next morning to find a lovely day, such a day as only Italy knows, with sunshine like gold, sky of clearest blue, and the river valley shining through soft mists like finest filtered rainbows. By a happy chance the Fiesole sister-in-law came to Florence that morning, and drove up to the door in a droll little cart drawn by a mouse-colored mule, with a green carrot-top stuck over his left ear and a bell round his neck. She gladly agreed to lodge the children, and her pleasant old face and English voice made them at once at home with her. There was just room in the cart for their trunk, and about five in the afternoon they set out, perched on the narrow bench in front, one on each side of their new friend, and holding each other's hands tightly behind her ample back. Signora Bianchi was the sister-in-law's name, but "padrona" was easier to say, and they called her so from the beginning.

The hill-road was nowhere steep, but each winding turn took them higher and higher above Florence. They could see the curvings of the river, the bridges, the cathedral dome, and the tall, beautiful bell-tower, which they had been told was the work of the great artist Giotto. Further on, the road was shut in between stone walls. Over the tops of these hung rose-vines, full of fresh pink roses, though it was early March. Pauline and Molly screamed with pleasure, and the padrona, driving her mule close under the wall, dragged down a branch and let them gather the flowers for themselves, which was delightful. She would not stop, however, when, a little later, they came to fields gay with red and purple anemones, yellow tulips, and oddly colored wild lilies so dark as to be almost black; there were plenty of such on top of the hill, she said, and they must not be too late in getting home. The black lilies were giglios,—the emblem or badge of the city of Florence; the children had not seen them before, but they remembered the form of the flower in the carved shields over the door of some of the old buildings.

The road ended in a small paved piazza, which is the Italian name for an open square. All about it stood old buildings, houses and churches, and a very ancient cathedral with a dirty leather curtain hanging before its door. Passing these, the mule clattered down a narrow side-street, or rather lane. The streets in Florence had seemed dark and dirty; but what were they compared with this alley, in which the wheels of the little cart grazed the walls on either side as it passed along? Rickety flights of outside stairs led to the upper stories of the buildings; overhead, lines of linen, hung out to dry, were flapping in the wind. An ill-smelling stream of water trickled over the rough cobble-stone pavement. Jolt, jolt, jolt!—then the mule turned suddenly into a dark place which looked like a shabby stable-yard. It was the ground-floor of the padrona's house, and this was the place where Pauline and Molly were to stay! They looked at each other with dismayed faces.

But the padrona called them to follow, and led the way up one stone staircase after another till they came to the third story. Here things were pleasanter. It was plain and bare; the floors were of brick, there were no carpets, and the furniture was scanty and old, but the rooms were large and airy, and through the open casement bright rays of sunshine streamed in. Pauline ran to the window, and behold, instead of the dirty lane, she saw the open piazza, and beyond, a glimpse of the blue hills and the Florence valley! She called Molly, and, perched on the broad sill, they watched the sunset and chattered like happy birds, while the padrona bustled to and fro, preparing supper and spreading coarse clean linen on the beds of a little chamber which opened from the sitting-room. The padrona's kitchen was about the size of an American closet. The stove was a stone shelf with two holes in it, just big enough to contain a couple of quarts of charcoal. It was like a doll's kitchen, Molly thought; and Pauline stared when she saw the padrona produce a palm-leaf fan and begin to fan the fire, as if it were faint and needed to be revived. But as she gazed, the charcoal was coaxed into a glow, the little pots and pans bubbled, and hey, presto! supper was ready, with half the trouble and a quarter the fuel which would have been needed to set one of our big home ranges going. It was a queer supper, but very good, the children thought; their long drive had made them hungry, and the omelette, salad, and polenta, or fried mush, tasted delicious. Everything was nice but the bread, which was dark in color and had an unpleasant sour taste. The padrona smiled when she saw them put aside their untasted slices, and said that she too used to dislike Italian bread, but that now she preferred it to any other.

The padrona was delighted with her young visitors. She had long been a widow. One of her sons was in the army, and seldom at home; the other helped her about the house and tilled a little meadow which belonged to them. She had no daughter to keep her company, and the sweet, bright-faced American girls pleased her greatly. She helped the sisters to undress, and tucked them into their beds as kindly as any old nurse, and they fell asleep with her pleasant voice in their ears: "Good-night and good dreams, little miss."

The morrow brought another fine day, and the girls improved it for a ramble about the quaint town. It seemed to them the very oldest place they had ever seen—and, in fact, Fiesole is older far than Florence, of which it was first the cradle and afterward the foe. They stood a long time before the windows of the straw-shop, choosing the things they would like to buy if they had any money! Pauline fell in love with a straw parasol, and Molly hankered after a work-basket for mamma. Both of them felt that it was dreadful to be poor, but there was no help for it. Then they climbed to an upper terrace and sat a long time looking on the fine view it commanded, and talking in gestures to some brown little children who came up to beg from them. After that, they lifted the curtain over the cathedral door, and stole quietly about the ancient church. It was dark and shabby and worm-eaten; but as they wandered to and fro they came upon beautiful things,—tombs of sculptured marble with figures of saints and madonnas, wreaths of marble flowers, bits of old carved wood as black as ebony. It was strange to find such treasures hidden away in the dust and gloom, and to think that there they were, dusty and gloomy and old, before Columbus discovered the very new continent which we call America! A queer smell breathed about the place, a smell of must and age and dried-up incense. Pauline and Molly were glad to get away from it and feel the fresh air and the sunshine again. They rambled on to the western slope of the hill, and a little way down, where the land descends in terraces to the wooded valley below, they came upon the ruins of a Roman amphitheatre. They had never seen an amphitheatre before, but they guessed what it was from a picture which mamma had shown them. On the ledges which once were seats, where spectators seated in rows had watched the lions and the gladiators fight, crowds of purple violets now lifted their sweet faces to the sky.

After that, the amphitheatre became their favorite walk, and they went back every day. The padrona warned them against sitting long on the ground or staying out till the sunset dews fell, but they heeded what she said very little; it seemed impossible that so pleasant a spot could have any harm about it. But at last came a morning when Pauline recollected the padrona's warnings, with a great frightened heart-jump, for Molly waked up hot and thirsty, and, when she lifted her head from the pillow, let it fall back again, and complained of being dizzy. The padrona made her some tea, and after a while she felt better and got up. But all that day and the next she looked pale, and dragged one foot after the other as she went about, and the third day fever came upon her in good earnest. Tea did no good this time, and she lay still and heavy, with burning hands and flushed cheeks. The padrona tried various simple medicines, and Pauline sat all day bathing Molly's head and fanning her, but neither medicine nor fanning was of use; and as night came on, and the fever grew higher, Molly began to toss and call for mamma, and to cry out about her pillow, which was stuffed with wool and very hard.

"I don't like this pillow, Pauline—indeed I don't, it makes my neck ache so! Why don't you take it away, Pauline, and give me a nice soft pillow, such as we used to have at home? And I want some ice, and some good American water to drink. This water is bad. I can't drink it. Make the ice clink in the tumbler, please—because if I hear it clink I shan't be thirsty any more. And call mamma. I must see mamma. Mamma!"

And Molly tried to get up, and then tumbled back and fell into a doze, while poor Pauline sat beside her with a lump in her throat which seemed to grow worse every moment, and to bid fair to choke her entirely if it didn't stop. She did not dare to sob aloud, for fear of rousing Molly, but the tears ran quietly down her cheeks as she thought of home and mamma. Where was she? How was papa? Why didn't they write? And, oh dear! what should she, should she do, if Molly were to be very ill in that lonely place, where there was no doctor or any of the nice things which people in sickness need so much? No one can imagine how forlorn Pauline felt—that is, no one who has not tried the experiment of taking care of a sick friend in a foreign land, where the ways and customs are strange and uncomfortable, and the necessaries of good nursing cannot be had.