The baby was not her own. It was a little Jewish foundling she had taken from the “Home” to nurse when her last baby died seven months ago. Four children had died before that when “so leetle.” Over the mantelpiece hung a large, shiny photograph of the last baby lying in its casket. The, casket had been very expensive, but it had been a great comfort to the mother to put so much money into it, quite unconscious that the living children were paying its heavy price in lowered health and vitality.
The Morellis’ three rooms had none of the air of prosperity that characterized the Colletti home. They were bare, and would have been dingy except for the bright bedspread, the gayly colored wall decorations, and advertising calendars, pictures of the royal family, the pope, the saints, and the Holy Virgin. Under this last a candle burned, an offering for Tony’s return. In the tiny dark box of a room back of the kitchen a cot and two chairs served Rose and the two younger girls as sleeping accommodations. A shakedown in the kitchen had been Tony’s bed. It was still there, unused. No one else would have thought of sleeping in it. It would have been an acknowledgment that he might not need it again.
As Rose went on talking of their “trouble” to her friends, they responded with quick sympathy. They lamented with the Morellis as sincerely as they had rejoiced with the Colletti family. They felt with Rose as keenly and genuinely as with Mary and Lucy. Sympathy is the keynote of the Italian community. It binds together not only members of the same family but relatives of all degrees, friends, fellow-tenants, speakers of the same dialect, those from the same Latin town. It extends to the little foundling, the tiny boarder, whose frequent presence in the home is such sad evidence of the high infant mortality in the Italian families. The $10 which the foster mother receives from the institution as board money does not prevent her from loving her little nursling with the same passionate abandon with which she loves her own.
Whether a girl comes from the higher income group like the Collettis, whose home runs the whole depth of the house and has circulation of fresh air, or from the group that feels the pressure of bare living in three choking, dark rooms as do the Morellis, she is touched by the same deep influence of family bonds and customs. A tying-up of the individual with the group, an identity of interests with those of one’s kin—these are the factors which dominate the lives of the family into which the Italian girl is born and which present a valiant front to the forces of personal independence that meet her in her American life, at school, in industry, and in recreation.
The claims of the school weigh little against the claims of the family. While she is a little girl in the grades, having difficulty perhaps with her lessons, the disadvantage to her of being “kept out” a few days does not weigh an instant against some temporary family need in which she may be of help. Illness, financial loss, trouble of any kind, not merely in her own home but in that of an aunt or uncle, keep many a young girl out of school if only to lament with the afflicted.
Let us glance into the Belsito kitchen on a winter evening after Adelina Belsito has been absent from school for a week. Over at the school the teacher’s register shows that this last week’s defection is only the latest of a long series of absences on the part of “Belsito, Adelina.” On this particular evening a number of friends are collected in the kitchen; their sympathetic and concerned expressions show that they are discussing some grave and anxious matter. Presently there enters upon the scene the school visitor. Will she not be seated and have a glass of wine and Adelina will tell the long story of the family’s misfortunes.
Illness, accident, death, and loss of savings have followed each other in rapid succession, topped now by the burning of a stable and the loss of Mr. Belsito’s two draft horses, the sole capital of the family. Angelina tells the story eagerly in great detail, Mrs. Belsito nodding mournfully at times and adding to her daughter’s account. The father is absent because he is out looking for more horses. He has borrowed money from a friend who is “rich” and the family is anxiously waiting to know his luck. Presently he comes, the children running to him and clinging to his legs. No, he has not been able to find horses; all cost too much; there is nothing, nothing to be had. He clasps his head with his hands and sits with it tragically bowed. Fresh commiseration arises from the gathering, and animated suggestions are offered.
Adelina must go to work. That is the consensus of opinion. But upon inquiry, the school visitor learns that Adelina is not yet entitled to working papers, being only in the fourth grade, although nearly fifteen. No, she does not like to go to school; she did like it until a year ago, but lately there has been “so much trouble” that she has been often absent. Of course she has not gone this week! After her father’s horses had burned! Adelina lifts surprised, hurt eyes at the question, though she is not able to explain just what aid she has been able to give by staying at home. And they have been sending her cards from the school, the last one demanding that her father come before the principal and explain her absence. Adelina and her family find this very hard and unjust “when there is so much trouble.” Besides, the father could not go; he had to look for horses. The father lifts his head and speaks to the girl in Italian. Presently she explains, “My father say he have it in his head what he do for you if you speak to the principal for me.”
And through the slight service which the “school lady” later rendered, the Belsitos became her fast friends.
In the Ruletti home down the block there is trouble of another kind. This time it is the mother’s grief which the daughter shares. Mrs. Ruletti is a slender, bent little woman in black. She is not over thirty-three but her deeply lined face looks all of fifty. Just home from work, she snatches up the baby and kisses it passionately, murmuring to it in Italian. She weeps as she talks. Lucrezia Ruletti explains, “They’re going to take it back; they wouldn’t let her keep it any longer and she feels just like she did when our baby died.”