Books › The Red Book Magazine v026 n02 [1915-12], 1915 › scan 78
Scan 78
The Red Book Magazine v026 n02 [1915-12], 1915
28 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1come back to his grandparents and the School and the Polytechnic, or—well, Eripodi's pack will pick a new leader.
3"To-night Eripodi sits at the Ristorante Sarto. Sarto has told me. The boy will be there too—and I."
5Maria clung to him a moment; he went; then she sat down to wait. So, all her life, she had been bidding him good-by in his arms and then sitting down to wait. The first time—that May-day in 1860, when the youth of seventeen kissed the girl of sixteen good-by and then flung himself, hot-eyed and eager, into the van of that little forlorn hope that tagged at the heels of "Madman" Garibaldi. And in twenty-six days they had won Palermo and in three months Sicily. And the girl had waited and watched, now to the south, to Sicily, now to the north as the tide of battle flowed toward the Alps, until finally Austria had been hurled from the Italian plains.
7Then Giuseppe had come home to the girl. And the years went on as the babies came,—and died,—while Giuseppe wrestled with the rocky soil of the little farm he held under the same lease his grandfather had signed. He was middle-aged when he came to America. And again the wife waited while he began life anew in a new country. And after a time she joined him. It had been a struggle; bitterer and longer than the struggle years before to free his country, was this struggle to free himself.
9But they had won. First he worked in the trenches in the street, then in the great steel mills. And then his violin that had lightened the marches for his comrades in Italy and cheered his neighbors in the new country, showed him an easier livelihood. As he earned money, he saved it. So now he rested in his old age, proud owner of two tenements and a store.
11Now it was good-by and the wait again. True, he but went to the ristorante of his friend, Sarto, but this might be the longest wait of them all. For they were no cowards in Little Italy, and yet they feared Eripodi.
13So Giuseppe came to beard Eripodi in his den, a kindly smile above the purple necktie, black violin-case under his arm, a bow for every one of the little groups about the round tables.
15A strange place, this one of Sarto's. Here gathered anarchist and priest, syndicalist and schoolmaster, blackmailer and blackmailed, thief and panderer and murderer. A man might sit here and see the faces and hear the dialects of all the provinces and half the villages of old Italy.
17Eripodi and his pack held revel. There had been a sudden fattening of coffers after a long period of leanness, and the gang celebrated. Here was young Tony. And none was more eager-eyed, none laughed louder at shameful tale or joke, none better mimicked the manner of Eripodi.
19Here the boy of the High School was the man of the Avenue. Here he was treated as an equal. His opinions, if disregarded, at least were listened to. And he, the man, was to be treated as a boy and chained to book and pen and weary lesson? Was to be a creature of rule and law and rote? Not he. To-night he celebrated freedom. He had intended to finish out the week at the High School. But what was the use? He would not go back.
21He was annoyed for a moment when old Giuseppe came in. Then he reflected that there was little the old man could do, even if he would.
23His grandfather came down the room, and Tony was surprised to see the deference with which the group at each table greeted him. None but returned his bows, none but gave him back his smile. Half a dozen times he was stopped by importunate ones begging him to join them for a chat and a bottle of wine.
25At a little table, next to where Tony and Eripodi and the others sat, were two old men. They talked now and then, but oftener were content to sit silently and smoke. Each time they drank they pledged each other formally.
27As Giuseppe approached them, they rose stiffly and stood at attention. They saluted him and greeted him as "Captain," and then waited until he had exchanged greetings with them and seated himself before they returned to their own chairs. Tony, who had lost no word or move, was surprised for a moment, until
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