"'Have no fear. My brother-in-law and Bernardo will stay with you. And then, of whom are you afraid? No one passes on this road except at 10 A. M., when the letter carrier goes by.'
"By the time this conversation ended my furniture was all inside the door. Cina told Giglio to get the stove ready for it was very cold. Cina hinted that he was going away soon. Hearing Cina say this, I told him I wanted to return to the village.
"'You are crazy,' he said. 'Have you money to pay me for returning your goods? Besides, I am not going to the village. I am going six miles in the other direction to buy hay for the horses. Cecala may be back to-morrow. Talk to him. My brother will bring you stuff to eat. So, why worry?'
"Later, I overheard Cina whisper to Giglio:
"'I got close to Caterina, who was in the door-step almost crying, and tried to comfort her, saying that when we were left alone we would get away.
"'Where is the fare?' Caterina is supposed to have asked him.
"Finally Cina departed. Giglio and Bernardo remained and began to arrange the furniture as best they could.
"Calmed of my anger, I went into the house and looked around. I found a large room that served as a kitchen and a back room for a store-room on the ground floor. Up the stairway and on the second floor I found three small rooms and a large room. Another flight of steps led to a garret. In the large room on the second floor I saw the press. It had been brought there while I was remaining at the farmhouse near Cina's. It was the same press I had dickered for. There was a dilapidated bed in one of the three small rooms on this floor, which Giglio had fixed up the best he could under the circumstances. As I was looking around the place I was convinced that I had been led into a trap of some kind, but it never entered my head that I had been brought up there for the purpose of printing counterfeit money! I thought that perhaps they wanted me for printing obscene literature, such as is prohibited by law, but on looking closer I did not discover any type, and my mind began to get busy trying to figure out what a press without type and accessories could be intended for placed in a desolate house in the backwoods.
"It must have been about eleven o'clock that morning when I saw a short-set man, possibly twenty-five or thirty years old, driving up. He was a man of dark complexion with a large moustache, dressed like a farmer with big shoes and red handkerchief around his neck, wearing a cap 'A la Sicilian.' He proved to be Cina's brother Peppino. He entered the house and said that he was bringing the supplies. He set down a bag of 100 pounds of potatoes, about forty pounds of flour to make bread, a bottle of olive oil, a case of macaroni, olives, smoked fish, salt, kerosene, onions and a small form of cheese, as well as twenty small cans containing tomato sauce. Unloading this stuff without ever uttering a word, the short-set fellow waved his hand at Giglio and Bernardo as he started on his way. Before leaving the house, though, he uttered the words 'Be careful.'
"Giglio now ordered Caterina to cook, saying that he was hungry. Caterina, realizing that she had to deal with bad people, prepared a meal. Four days went by and on the fifth Giglio and Bernardo left, saying that they were going to get something to eat as the provisions brought by Peppino could not last much longer. We were then living on baked potatoes and plain bread.