Martha Trent - Lucia Rudini
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Martha Trent >> Lucia Rudini
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"Tell me a story," Beppi demanded; "not about fairies and silly make
believes, but about soldiers."
"But there are no pretty stories about soldiers, Beppino mio," Lucia
protested.
"Who wants pretty stories!" Beppi replied scornfully. "_I_ don't--tell
me an exciting one about guns and war."
"Very well I'll try, but be still," Lucia gave in, well knowing that
she would not have to go very far.
"Once upon a time," she began, "there was a soldier. He had very big
eyes, and he came from the south where the sun is very warm and the sky
and the water are very, very blue."
"Was he brave?" Beppi interrupted sleepily.
"Oh, yes, he was very brave," Lucia replied hurriedly, "very brave, and
he loved his country more than anything else in the world."
She waited but Beppi's voice commanded.
"Go on, don't stop."
"Well, one day he was sent to guard a gate of a city, and he walked up
and down before it with his gun on his shoulders, and no one could pass
him unless it was a friend."
She paused again. Beppi was breathing regularly.
"Old sleepy head!" Lucia whispered, and kissed him tenderly.
The story was not continued and before many minutes she was fast asleep
herself.
It was an hour before sunrise when she awoke. The air that found its
way into the little attic was damp and chill. Lucia crept out of bed,
being very careful not to disturb Beppi, and slipped hurriedly into her
clothes. With her shoes in her hand, she climbed gingerly down the
ladder past her sleeping grandmother and out to the shed.
"Good morning, Garibaldi, how are you this morning?" she said as she
patted the stocky little neck of her pet.
Garibaldi submitted to her caress with a condescension worthy of the
position her name gave her, and the other goats crowded to the open
door, eager to leave their cramped quarters.
"Not yet, my dears," Lucia said softly, "it isn't time. Here, Esther,
I will milk you first. You must all be good to-day, and Garibaldi, I
don't want you to go running away if I have to leave you with Beppi,"
she continued. "You're nothing but goats, of course, but you know
perfectly well that we are at war, and that you are very important, and
must do your part. Stop it, Miss, none of your pranks, I'm in a
hurry," she chided the refractory Esther for an attempt at playfulness.
"There now, that's enough, I can't carry any more or I would. Two
pails only half full aren't much, but they help, I guess. Now if it
won't rain until I get there it will be all right, but I'll cover the
pails to be on the safer side." She found two covers and fitted them
securely over the pails. "Now children, good-by. Be good till I come
back, and don't go making any noise."
She paused long enough to give Garibaldi a farewell pat and then left
the shed closing the door behind her. She looked up uneasily at the
cottage, but everything seemed to be very still, so she picked up her
pails and started off at as brisk a pace as possible.
She followed the main road that looked unnaturally white and ghostly in
the pale dawn of the early morning. It was down hill for about a mile,
and traveling was comparatively easy at first, but when the road
reached the bottom of the valley it stopped and seemed to straggle off
into numerous little foot-paths. The broadest and most traveled
looking path Lucia followed, picking her way carefully for fear of
stumbling and thus losing some of the precious milk.
The path led up the other side of the valley. It was a steep climb,
and Lucia was tired when she reached the top. She sat down for a while
to rest before going on the remainder of the way. The next path that
she took turned abruptly to the right, and led up an even steeper hill
to a tiny plateau above. From it one could look down on Cellino across
the valley. When Lucia reached it she put down her pails in the shade
of a big rock and looked about cautiously.
Nothing seemed to stir. The guns were quiet and nothing in the
peaceful, secluded little spot suggested the close proximity of battle.
The only human touch in sight was a small scrap of paper, held down by
a stone on the flat rock above the pails.
Lucia was not surprised, for she had done the same thing every morning
for a week now. She unfolded it. As she expected, she found four
brightly polished copper pennies and the words, "Thanks to the little
milk maid," written in heavy pencil.
Lucia picked up the money and put it into her pocket, then with a
pencil that she had brought especially for the purpose she wrote, "You
are welcome, my friends; good luck!" below the message, and tucked the
paper back under the stone. Then with another curious look around,
which discovered nothing, she started back, this time running as fleet
and fast as any of her sure-footed little goats.
She reached home before either Nana or Beppino were awake, and hurried
to finish her milking. When the scant breakfast was over, she was
ready to start for town with her pails.
When she entered the market-place, it was to find a very different
scene from the one of the day before. The place was thronged with
soldiers, but they were not laughing and jesting; instead, little
groups congregated around the stalls and talked excitedly. Some of the
old women had covered their faces with their black aprons, and were
rocking back and forth on their chairs in an extremity of woe.
There was an unnatural hush, and men and women alike lowered heir
voices instinctively as they talked.
Lucia had seen the same thing many times before. She guessed, and
rightly too, that a battle was going on, and that news of some disaster
had reached the little town. She did not go at once to her aunt's
stall, but left her pails inside the big bronze door of the church, and
slipped quietly inside. The place was deserted, and the lofty dome was
in dark shadow. Long rays of pale yellow light from the morning sun
came through the narrow windows and made queer patches on the marble
floor. In the dim recesses of the little chapels tiny candles
flickered like stars in the dark.
Lucia looked about her to make sure that she was alone, and then walked
quickly to one of the chapels and dropped four shining copper pennies
into the mite box that stood on a little shelf beside the altar. She
stayed only long enough to say a hasty little prayer, and then hurried
out again into the sunshine. The clouds of the night before and the
mist of the early morning had disappeared, and the market-place was
bathed in warm golden sunshine.
Lucia picked up her pails and hurried to her aunt's stall.
"Well, you are late," Maria said. "We thought you had stubbed your toe
and spilled all the milk."
"And only two half-full pails again," Senora Rudini grumbled. "But no
matter, we can get more from old Paolo. Have you heard the news?" she
asked abruptly.
"No," Lucia replied indifferently. "What is it?"
"A big gain by the enemy. They have taken thousands of our men, and
they say we may be ordered to leave Cellino at any minute."
"Think of it! They are as near as that!" Maria said excitedly. "Oh if
we must move, where can we go to? I am so frightened."
"Nonsense," Lucia spoke shortly. There was an angry gleam in her big
eyes and her cheeks flushed a dark red.
"Leave Cellino, indeed! The very idea! Since when must Italians make
way for Austrians, I'd like to know?"
"But if the enemy are advancing as they say," Maria protested
nervously, "we will either have to leave, or be shelled to death by
those dreadful guns."
"Or be taken prisoners, and a nice thing that would be," her mother
added. "No, if the order to evacuate comes we must go at once. There
will be no time to spare. Other towns have been captured, and there is
only that between us."
She pointed to the zigzag mountain peaks so short a distance beyond the
north gate. As if to give her words weight, a heavy thunder of guns
rumbled ominously.
Maria shuddered. "There, that is ever so much nearer. Oh, I am
frightened,--something dreadful is happening over there just out of
sight."
"Silly! those are our own guns. Ask any of our soldiers," Lucia said.
"Here comes your guard, the handsome Roderigo Vicello, maybe he can
tell us. Good morning to you!" she called gayly and beckoned the
soldier to come to them.
"I hope you are well this morning," Roderigo said respectfully, bowing
to Senora Rudini.
"Oh, we are well, but very frightened," Maria replied, trying hard to
imitate her cousin's gaiety.
"Maria thinks that the guns we heard just now are Austrian, and I have
been trying to tell her that they are Italian. Which of us is right?
You are a soldier and ought to know."
"Our guns, of course. They have a different sound," Roderigo explained
impressively.
He had never been any nearer to the front than he was at this moment,
but he spoke with the assurance of an old soldier, partly to quiet
Maria's fears, but mostly to still his own nervous forebodings. It
would never do to let the little black-eyed Lucia see that he was even
a little afraid.
"There, what did I tell you!" Lucia was triumphant. "I knew, but of
course you would not believe me. Now perhaps you will tell her that we
will not have to run away at a minute's notice, too?"
She turned to Roderigo, but eager as he was to display his importance
he could not give the assurance she asked. The little knowledge that
he had, made him think that the evacuation was very likely to occur at
any day.
He covered his fears, however, by replying vaguely: "One can never be
sure. War is war, and perhaps it may be necessary, as well as safer,
for you to leave for the time being."
Lucia looked at him narrowly.
"What makes you say that?" she demanded. "Have you heard any of the
officers talking?"
"No, but this morning's news is very bad. We have our orders to be
ready to start at any moment."
"Oh!" Maria caught her breath sharply, and her eyes filled with tears
as she looked at Roderigo shyly.
He saw the tears in surprise, and a contented warmth settled around his
heart. He looked half expectantly at Lucia. Surely, if this calm, shy
girl of the north would shed a tear for him, she with the warm blood of
the south in her veins would weep. But Lucia's eyes were dry, and the
only expression he could find in them was envy. He turned away in
disgust. He did not admire too much courage in girls, for he was very
young and very sentimental, and he enjoyed being cried over.
A bugle sounded from the other end of the street, and in an instant
everything was in confusion. The soldiers hurried to answer, and the
people crowded about to see what was going to happen.
Lucia, eager and excited, snatched Maria's hand and pulled her into the
very center of the crowd. An officer, with the bugler beside him, read
an order from the steps of the town hall, an old gray stone building
that had stood in silent dignity at the end of the square for many
centuries.
The girls were not near enough to hear the order, but they soon found
Roderigo in the excited mass of soldiers, and he explained it to them.
"We are to leave for the front at once," he cried excitedly. "We have
not a moment to spare. Tavola has been captured by the enemy, and our
troops are retreating through the Pass."
"The Saints preserve us!" Senora Rudini covered her face with her apron
and cried. "My sons! My sons! Where are they, dead or prisoners?"
"No, no, they are safe," Lucia protested. "They are with the Army.
Don't worry, when the reenforcements reach them they will go forward
again."
But her aunt refused to be comforted. Everywhere in the street women
were calling excitedly, and a number of them besieged the officers for
information.
The soldiers hurried to their billets and got together their kits. The
square buzzed and hummed with excitement and the guns kept up a steady
bass accompaniment.
The bugle sounded a different order every little while. Some of the
more prudent women went home and began packing their household
treasures, but for the most part every one stayed in the market-place
and argued shrilly.
"Come!" Lucia exclaimed, catching Maria's hand. "We can watch them
march off from the top of the wall by the gate."
They ran quickly through the side streets, and by taking many turns
they at last reached the broad top of the wall, which they ran along
until they were just above the north gate.
"Here they come!" Maria exclaimed. "I can hear them."
The paved streets of the town rang with the heavy tramp, tramp of men
marching, and before long they appeared before the gate. The order to
walk four abreast was given. The men took their places, and then at a
brisk pace they marched through the old gate, a sea of bobbing black
hats and cock feathers.
The townspeople followed to cheer them excitedly. Lucia and Maria
leaned dangerously over the edge of the wall in their attempt to
recognize the familiar faces under the hats.
The soldiers looked up and called out gayly at sight of Lucia. She had
taken off her flowered kerchief and was waving it excitedly. The wind
caught her dark hair and blew it across her face, and her bright skirts
in the sunshine made a vivid spot of color against the stone wall. The
men turned often to look back at her as they marched along the wide
road.
Maria did not lift her eyes from the sea of hats beneath her. She was
waiting for one face to look up. At last she had her wish. Roderigo's
place was towards the end of the column; when he walked under the gate
he looked up and smiled. It was a sad smile, full of regret.
Without exactly meaning to, Maria dropped the flower she was wearing in
her bodice. Roderigo caught it and tucked it, Neapolitan fashion,
behind his ear, then he blew a kiss to Maria and marched on.
Lucia watched the little scene. She was half amused and half
contemptuous. Her little heart under its gay bodice was filled with a
fine hate that left no room for pretty romance.
CHAPTER IV
LOST
When the soldiers had climbed out of sight into the mountains, Maria
walked slowly back to find her mother, and Lucia after a hurried
good-by ran home to tell Nana and Beppino the news.
She was far more worried over the possible order to evacuate than she
would admit. As their cottage was the farthest north on the road, it
would be the nearest to the Austrian guns. Personally Lucia scorned
the very idea of the Austrian guns, but she could not help realizing
the danger to Nana and Beppino and Garibaldi. She was still undecided
what to do when she reached the cottage.
Nana Rudini was standing in the doorway, shading her eyes with her
withered old hand, and staring intently in the direction that the
soldiers had taken.
"Did you see the troops, Nana?" Lucia asked cheerfully. "They were a
fine lot, eh? I guess they will be able to stop the enemy from coming
any nearer."
"Nearer?" queried Nana, "what are you saying?"
"We have had bad luck," Lucia explained. "Tavola has been captured,
and our soldiers are retreating. In town they say we may have to
evacuate before to-morrow."
The old woman received the news without comment, but a look of despair
came into her usually bright eyes, and for the moment made them tragic.
Long years before, when Austria had crossed the mountains and entered
Cellino, she had been a young girl. Now in her old age they were to
come again, and there was no reason to hope that this time they would
be less brutal in their triumph than they had been formerly. The
memory of their brutality was still a vivid one.
"We will leave at once," she said at last, and her decision was so
unexpected, that Lucia gasped in surprise.
"Leave? But, Nana, where will we go? What will become of our things?"
she exclaimed. "Surely we had better wait at least until we are
ordered out."
"No, we will leave at once," Nana replied firmly. "The order may come
too late, as it did before. What do those boys who swagger about in
men's places know about the enemy? There is not one that can remember
them. But I, old Nana, have known them and their ways, and I say we
must go at once."
Lucia looked at the new light of determination in her grandmother's
eyes, and realized with a shock of surprise that to protest would be
useless.
"Where is Beppi?" she asked. "I will go and find him."
"With the goats," Nana replied. "Call him, I will go in and start
packing."
Lucia ran around the house and off to the sunny slope where she had
left Beppi a few hours before. She saw the flock of goats grazing, and
called, "Beppino mio, where are you?"
No one answered her. She hurried on, believing him to have fallen
asleep.
"Beppi!" she shouted, "I have something exciting to tell you. Stop
hiding from me."
She waited, but still no answer came.
In a sudden frenzy of fear she began running aimlessly up and down the
hillside, and looking down into the tall grasses, but there was no sign
of Beppi. There were no trees or houses in sight, no place that he
could hide behind, nearer than the mountain path at the foot of the
valley.
Lucia looked about her despairingly, then she went over to the goats.
Garibaldi was not there.
"She has strayed away, and Beppi has gone after her," she said aloud in
relief, and returned to the cottage.
Nana nodded when she explained. She was busy tying up the household
treasures in sheets, and Lucia helped her.
Every few minutes she would go to the door and call, but Beppi did not
reply. The afternoon wore on slowly and a bank of rain clouds hid the
sun. Lucia's confidence gave way to her first feeling of terror, and
Nana was growing impatient.
"Where can he be?" Lucia exclaimed. "I am frightened, he has been gone
so long."
Nana shook her head. "He was off after the soldiers, I suppose," she
replied. "He is always disobeying--no good will come to him and his
naughty ways."
Lucia's eyes flashed.
"He is not naughty," she protested angrily, "and he may be lost this
very minute. Anyway I am going to find him and I am not coming home
until I do. If you are afraid to stay here go to Maria, she and aunt
will look after you, and when I find Beppi I will meet you there."
Nana Rudini protested excitedly, but Lucia did not wait to hear what
she said. She ran out of the house and down the road towards the
footpath. She had no idea of where she was going, but fear lead her
on. Beppi, her adored little brother, and Garibaldi were lost, and she
was going to find them.
At the end of the road she paused and looked ahead of her. The sky was
dark with rain-clouds and thunder rumbled in the west, an echo of the
guns. Lucia took the path that she had taken early that morning, and
as she climbed up the steep ascent she called and shouted. Her own
voice came back to her from the flat rocks ahead, but there was no
sound of Beppi.
Instead of going on to the little plateau where she left her pails, she
branched off to the left. It was hard climbing, and after repeated
shouts of "Beppi," she sat down and tried to think.
Big drops of rain were beginning to fall, and with the sun out of sight
the fall air was damp and cold. She pulled her thin shawl around her
shoulders and shivered.
"If Garibaldi ran away she came up here; she always does," she argued
to herself. "She loves to climb, and she must have come this way in
the hope of finding grass. Up above, and a little over to the left,
there is a sort of sheltered spot. Perhaps--" she did not finish the
thought, but jumped up and started to climb.
She hunted until she discovered a way to find the spot. It was not
difficult, for she knew every foot of the mountains from long
association. But Beppi was not to be seen, nor was Garibaldi. Lucia
stopped, discouraged. Fear and helplessness were getting the better of
her, and she would most likely have given way to the tears she so
despised had her eye not caught sight of a tuft of fur on the ground.
She seized upon it eagerly. It was without doubt part of Garibaldi's
shaggy coat.
With a cry of joy she started off up the tiny trail that led higher up
into the rocks.
"Beppi, Beppi!" she called, and stopped. Still no answer, but she was
not discouraged for the guns were making so much noise that she
realized her voice could not carry any great distance.
The rain was coming down in earnest now, and it was hard to keep from
losing her footing on the slippery rocks. She stumbled on regardless
of the danger, hoping against hope that she had chosen the right path,
and that each step was bringing her nearer to Beppi. Between calling
and climbing, she was tired, and she stopped for a moment to catch her
breath.
A sound, faint but unmistakable, reached her.
"Naa, Naa!"
Garibaldi was complaining about the weather, at no very great distance
away from her.
In her relief Lucia laughed excitedly.
"Beppi, Beppi, where are you?" she shouted, and waited eagerly for a
reply, but none came. She looked puzzled and then Garibaldi answered
her:
"Naa! Naa!"
The sound came from directly over her head, and she climbed up the
steep rock as fast as she could. Garibaldi was standing at the opening
of a cave. Lucia ran to her.
"Oh, my pet, I have found you at last. Where is Beppi?" she cried.
Garibaldi did not exactly reply, but she stepped a little to one side,
and Lucia saw Beppino curled up on a bed of dry leaves sheltered and
snug from the storm, and sleeping quite as contentedly as he did on the
mattress in the attic at home.
Lucia ran to him and shook him. He opened his eyes, and a dazed look
came into them, then he said:
"Oh, yes, I remember, it began to rain and we were lost, your old
crosspatch Garibaldi and I, so I found this nice little place, and I
was going to pretend that I was a gypsy brigand, but I fell asleep."
Lucia was far too happy to attempt the scolding that she knew Beppi
deserved. She picked him up in her arms, and hugged and kissed him,
then she encircled Garibaldi's neck and kissed her too.
"My darlings, I thought you were both lost. What a terrible fright you
have given me! But we are safe now, and we will wait until sunrise
to-morrow, and then we will go home," she said happily.
"I saw the soldiers go away," Beppi said, pushing her face from him as
she tried to kiss him again, "and they looked so fine with their shiny
hats. It was while I looked at them that old crosspatch ran away. I
did have a chase, I can tell you, she had such a big start."
"Are you very hungry, little one?" Lucia asked gently. "I should have
brought bread with me, but I did not think."
Beppi giggled, and from the pocket of his little tunic he produced the
pink paper bag.
"Two left," he announced as he opened it, "and both long ones. Here's
yours and here's mine. Garibaldi's been eating grass all day, so she's
not hungry."
Lucia accepted the candy, and they both had a drink of milk. Then
Beppi snuggled down in his sister's arms and his eyelids grew heavy.
"Go on with that story," he said, "the one about the soldier at the
gate."
Lucia smiled in the dark and hugged him tight. The guns were silent,
and only occasional peals of thunder broke the stillness.
"Well, one day," she began, "a very cross girl came to the gate, and
the soldier who was always on the lookout for the stolen princess
stopped her and spoke to her. But the cross girl was feeling very mean
indeed, and she teased the soldier and made him very unhappy. But
later on in the afternoon she was ashamed, and so she found the nice
girl who was really the stolen princess, and took her with her to the
gate, and the soldier--"
Lucia broke off and sat up suddenly to listen. A queer "rat, tat,
tat," detached itself from the other night noises. Beppi was sound
asleep, and she rolled him gently into the nest of leaves, then she
listened again. The sound came again.
"Rat, tat, tat." It was a sharp staccato hammering, muffled by the
wall of rock behind her.
She stood up and crept softly to the mouth of the cave.
The wind and the rain made such a noise that she could hear nothing,
and it was already too dark to distinguish anything but the vaguest
outlines. She crept back into the shelter, believing that she had just
imagined what she had heard, but she had not taken her place beside
Beppi before she heard it again--a persistent "rat, tat, tat," too
metallic and too regular to be accounted for by a natural cause.
Lucia's mind was alert at once. She put her ear up against the rock
and listened again. Muffled sounds too indistinct to recognize came to
her. Whatever they were, they were not far off, and right in a line
with the back of the cave.
Lucia thought of several explanations, but could accept none of them.
She tried to argue against her fears by saying over and over again that
if it was a sound made by men, those men were surely Italian soldiers,
but her arguments could not still the frightened beating of her heart,
as the voice became more distinct. She was filled with terror.
Rumors of underground tunnels and mines blowing off whole mountain
tops, that she had heard from the soldiers, came back to her and left
her cold with fear.
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