At his birth Christopher Columbus was simply Cristoforo Colombo, and it was not until he arrived at manhood that he was translated into Latin, in which tongue he has been handed down to the present generation. At a still later period he translated himself into Spanish, becoming thereby Christoval Colon. We can not be too thankful that he was never translated into German, for we could scarcely take pride in a country discovered by one Kolompo.
[Æt. 1; 1442]
The father of Columbus was Domenico Colombo, a wool-comber by occupation. Whose wool he combed, and why he combed it, and whether wool-combing is preferable to wool-gathering as an intellectual pursuit, are questions that have never been satisfactorily decided.
Of Mrs. Colombo we simply know that her Christian name was Fontanarossa, or Red Fountain, a name more suitable to a Sioux Indian than a Christian woman, though perhaps, poor creature! it was not her fault.
Young Christopher was at an early age thoughtfully provided with two younger brothers—who were afterwards very useful to him—and a younger sister. The former were Giacomo, afterward known as Diego, and Bartolommeo, who has been translated into English as Bartholomew. The sister does not appear to have had any name, though her mother might have spared three or four syllables of her own name without feeling the loss of them. This anonymous sister married one Giacomo Bavarello, and promptly vanished into an obscurity that history cannot penetrate.
[Æt. 6; 1443]
From his earliest years Christopher was an unusual and remarkable boy. One day when he was about six years of age he was sent by his mother, early in the morning, to the store to purchase a pound of “blueing” for washing purposes. The morning grew to noon, and the afternoon waned until evening—processes which are not peculiar to the climate of Genoa—but the boy did not return, and his mother was unable to wash the family clothes. The truant had forgotten all about the “blueing,” and was spending the entire day in company with the McGinnis boys, watching a base-ball match in the City Hall Park between the Genoese Nine and the Red-legs of Turin. At dusk he returned, and his broken-hearted mother handed him over to his stern father, who invited him into the woodshed. As Christopher was removing his coat and loosening his other garments so as to satisfy his father that he had no shingles or school-atlases concealed about his person, he said:
“Father, I stayed to witness that base-ball match, not because of a childish curiosity, nor yet because I had any money on the game, but solely in order to study the flight of the ball, hoping thereby to obtain some hints as to the law of projectiles that would enable me to improve the science of gunnery, which is now by no means in an advanced state. If, in view of these circumstances, you still think me worthy of punishment, I will submit with all the fortitude I can summon.”
The father, deeply moved at this frank confession, wore out two apple-tree switches in connection with his son, and informed him that if he ever went with those McGinnis boys again he would “let him know.”
At another time, when Christopher was about eight years old, his father sent him to a news company’s office to get the last number of the Wool-Combers’ Trade Review; but, as before, the boy failed to return, and after a prolonged search was given up as lost, and his parents decided that he had been run over by the horse-cars. Late in the evening Christopher was detected in the act of trying to sneak into the house through the kitchen windows, and was warmly received by his father, who stood him up in the middle of the kitchen, and without releasing his ear, demanded to know what he had to say for himself.