“Oggi il Signor È morto.”

“Dead? Impossible, we heard he was better!”

Gasperone smiled patiently, pointed to heaven and repeated the greeting that, in Sicily, people give each other on Good Friday: “Today our Lord is dead.”

I had come to spend Easter at Camp; Gasperone met me at the station. His words brought a faint uneasiness that returned whenever the greeting was repeated: I heard it many times that day—from Caterina, Zenobia, Zia Maddalena, a dozen others—and always it brought that faint shock, as if there was something especially significant to us in the words.

On our way to Camp we met Timothy, the carpenter. I stopped to ask how things were going on.

“Badly!” said Timothy. “Ain’t it a pity? Such a fine day at last after all this rain! It’s a holiday; the men don’t want to work. We’re short of hands all round. I have only fifteen out of my gang of twenty-seven, and they are working under protest.”

“This is a festa?” I asked Gasperone.

“No, not a feast; rather a great fast,” said Gasperone.

“First thing I knew of it’s being Good Friday,” said Timothy, “was the hot cross buns for breakfast—the best bread I have eaten since I left home. You ought to look into the church they rigged up; it’s like a tempor’y railroad station. It certainly is cheerful to see them poor devils hanging round the statuary—touching, too.”

It was well for all concerned that the men refused to work, that the great “drive” was relaxed for a breathing space. They had all been working over time, “on a spurt” to get things as far advanced as possible for the visitors.

Saturday morning I went with Signor Donati and J. to call on the Archbishop at his palace, one of the few habitable buildings in Messina; it had been only slightly damaged by the earthquake. The handsome courtyard was filled with wooden shanties, the lower halls, the very stairs were crowded with families camping out. The palace had become an asylum for the homeless, a storehouse for the treasures saved from cathedral, church and monastery. While waiting for the Archbishop, we were entertained by a Jesuit priest who spoke good English.

“You shall see all our precious things,” he said, “if you will send some more blankets for our poor people and some vulgar shoes.”

The Jesuit, a lean virile man in a shabby cassock, took a big bunch of keys from his belt and led the way to a distant wing of the palace. He unlocked a heavy iron-barred door, motioned us to pass through, and locked the door behind us. We were in a vast room, smelling faintly of stale incense and wax candles, filled with the spoil of churches. There were statues of saints, plaster angels, paintings of the Madonna, crucifixes, fragments of rich altar cloths, embroidered vestments, priceless old laces, gold and silver vessels for the mass, painted missals, candlesticks, lamps, all carefully sorted and laid in piles. We passed through room after room,

filled with this strange wreckage of the churches, to an inner apartment, double locked, a high vaulted chamber where the most precious treasures were kept, the gold and the silver mantas of the Madonna della Lettera. The gold manta is an exquisite piece of goldsmith’s work, beautifully chased and set with gorgeous jewels, most of them royal gifts. We admired an emerald ornament offered by Queen Isabel of Spain (the modern Isabel), who greatly affected emeralds, and a diamond brooch given by Queen Margherita.

“Nothing is missing,” said the Jesuit; “if the soldiers overlooked anything, the people found it and brought it to us—all the jewels of the Madonna della Lettera, even the precious letter itself, are here.”

“The epistle,” Signor Donati explained, “written by the Virgin to the people of Messina, and brought here by Saint Paul, who, as you know, came to Sicily in the year 42.”

The Archbishop received us in his study, a big bare room filled with supplicants, all talking at once. In order that we might hear each other speak, he led the way to a smaller apartment next door. The Archbishop is a tall handsome man, with a direct, forcible manner. We heard from Sicilian friends that he had spent the whole of his large private fortune for the benefit of his people and his church. The Archbishop wasted no time; after thanking us for what had already been done, he spoke of what was nearest his heart.

“Build us a church! That is our first need; then build us a barrack, large enough to house eighteen priests. Out of my one hundred and five, eighty were killed; but first of all the church, that is our greatest need!”

“You shall have your church, be not afraid,” said Signor Donati. “Behold, the Signor architetto has brought his plans to show you!”

J. unrolled the plans with his neat drawings, and spread them out on the writing table, using the ancient sand boxes of the silver inkstand to hold down the corners:

“Notice that the church is to be in the shape of the Red Cross.”

“Admirable!” said the Archbishop. “Be seated.” With a gracious gesture of authority, he motioned J. to a chair, seated himself at the table, and bent over the plans.

Point by point, they went over the ground-plan, elevation, and all the rest of it. The Archbishop was delighted; every ingenious detail pleased him. His earnest, worn face relaxed; he really smiled, waxed enthusiastic. Nothing, he declared, could have been better devised. This was the attitude of the churchmen throughout. Whatever was done for them was well done. The plans for the church were much more elaborate than I had supposed from J.’s letters. Instead of a mere roofed-in shed, it was to be a very solidly built wooden church on concrete foundations; it was even to have a belfry.

“By grouping together the ordinary cottage windows, we have here a rose window!”

“What a good idea!”

“By a miracle, enough red glass has been found in Messina to make a red cross for the centre of the rose window—nothing is lacking, you see, not even a stained glass window.”

“Capital!”

“If we succeed in getting your church built for you, there are two requests we make in return.”

“Requests? Let us hear them.”

“First, that the church be called Santa Croce; this because, if built, it will be by a gift of the American Red Cross.”

“A good name,” the Archbishop nodded; “it shall certainly be called Santa Croce. The second request?”

“The Signor Comandante asks for the use of a bell one of our carpenters saw lying on the ground outside a ruined church.”

“For what will the bell be used?”

“To call the men to work.”

“That is a good use. Laborare est orare. Send your men for the bell when you like.”

The Archbishop rose as he said it, and the interview was over; a busy man, he had given us all the time he could spare. The Jesuit came with us to the door of the palace.

“The Signora will not forget? Vulgar shoes. Some were sent with high heels, pointed toes—no use for us. Vulgar shoes for men and women. It is understood?”

Grass was not allowed to grow under the feet at Belknapoli (so Mrs. Griscom christened the Camp); that very afternoon they sent for the bell. It came in a cart, drawn by a pair of swift red oxen, surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd of Messinesi. With a deal of laughter and shouting, the church bell was hung between two trees outside the “pay-window.” From that day on, it called the men to labor and to rest, morning, noon and night.[2]

On Saturday afternoon Gasperone knocked at my door. “Behold,” he said, “the package from Rome the Signora expected. It seems in good condition.” He laid down a big bundle that had come by post.

We had telegraphed Agnese from Palermo, to send some clothing to the Camp to distribute for Easter. Agnese had been faithful, the post-office prompt, the clothes had come in time. It cost twenty cents to send the telegram, a very small sum to transport the package. In Italy the people own their telegraph and express; they pay the minimum price for both services. When shall we do as much?

The news that there were clothes to be had for the asking spread rapidly; a line formed outside the guest house. The dresses, alas, did not begin to “go round.” With the doctor’s help, we gave them to the most needy, thwarting Gasperone, who wanted them all for his family. At the end of the distribution Caterina arrived, out of breath, leading the raggedest barefoot child in all ragged Messina. Nothing remained for her but a bright blue dress and a buff silk handkerchief.

“It is finished, away, away!” Gasperone drove the grateful, gossiping crowd before him. “The Comandante does not allow loafing about the Camp; be off!”

On Easter morning the Camp slept late; it was to be a real holiday, for the men at least. The matins of the birds began before dawn. At sunrise the world was one great opal; as the sun grew stronger, the opalescent mists disappeared; by the time the goats came rambling to the kitchen door, the earth was an emerald between a sapphire sea and sky. Caterina was the first to give me the lovely Easter greeting:

“Oggi il Signor non È morto!” (Today our Lord is not dead.)

A little girl in a pretty blue dress, a buff handkerchief tied over her rippling bronze hair, shyly held out a lilac lily as she lisped:—“Blessed be thou!”

“Don’t you know her?” cried Caterina. “It’s Teresa; the dress suits her, yes?”

Teresa, the ragged little witch of last night, was transformed into a neat demure child! All that bright beautiful Easter day I kept meeting one and another of the girls and women, who the night before had been so forlorn, so bedraggled. Today they were neat and freshly dressed for Pasqua. How did they do it? In the streets, in the church, wherever you met the women, you felt that effort at festive dress for the great feast of the year, the world-old festival, that from the beginning of time we have celebrated by one name or another.

The services in Messina this Easter Sunday were far more impressive than any I ever saw at Rome or even at Seville. The pontifical mass was said by the Archbishop in a small wooden theatre that had escaped destruction. The congregation was large; there were now forty thousand persons in Messina. Many of the congregation were maimed or crippled. A man with a bandaged right arm at the elevation of the Host struck his breast three times and murmured low, “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” Poor soul! whatever his sins have been, his sufferings must have matched them! In the afternoon the images of the Saviour and of Mary the Mother were carried in procession through Messina. Cries of “Viva Maria!” followed the figures. A young girl took her earrings from her ears, and one of the bearers climbed up and hung the offering in Mary’s girdle.

“Ah, Santissima Maria!” cried a poor old woman with tear-worn eyes, “you have nothing, not even a drum, to do you honor! Ah! the band that went before you a year ago! The musicians are all dead. I lost my two daughters. They are under the ruins; may I meet them in Paradise! See, this is my husband; he is blind; we two old ones were saved; all the children and the grandchildren were taken.”

As the figure of the Christ passed, the old blind man fell on his knees, stretching out his arms and crying in a terrible voice: “Santissimo padre, help us, help us!”

“This is the first real Sunday we have had at Camp,” said the doctor that evening.

No one was ever obliged, or even asked, to work on Sunday, I think; our men had caught the fever of work, it was the labor microbe that pushed them on. The desolate people, the sad women with their wonderful children, who came from their little wretched huts and looked with longing eyes at the baracche Americane, stirred and stimulated our men to toil through the bitter days of rain, and the dreadful days of wind, when the pestilential dust of the city, that vast charnel house, was driven into the eyes and throat.

Easter Monday was a festa, and the men did not work. Some of the carpenters went for a long bicycle ride. Signor Donati appeared at breakfast in a fine sportsmanlike costume with gaiters, cartridge belt and game bag. We heard him blazing away all day with his gun. He shot one swallow. The tiny scrap of a bird was brought in on a plate at dinner, offered to me, then to the Captain, and finally sent to Brofferio, who was ill in his room.

At the Villaggio Regina Elena there was a pretty ceremony that Easter Monday. On Sunday a poor blind woman, Giuseppa Lo Verde, gave birth to a little girl, the first child born in the Queen’s village. The child was baptized the next day and given the name of Elena. The ceremony took place at the tiny church the dear sailors built. Captain Bignami holding the little one in his arms at the baptismal font.

One of the most popular places in the Camp was Dr. Donelson’s office, a tiny surgery, not more than eight feet square. The poor people had soon found him out—the unofficial work of this good physician deserves a whole chapter to itself. The doctor’s patients were not ungrateful; that Easter he had as thank offering a basket of golden citrons; a blue heron, warranted “good eating,” a handful of coppers from Zia Maddalena, whose grandchild he had cured. Though little was said of illness, there was plenty of it about. I was warned not to go near certain hovels, where scarlet fever was raging. The doctor was a daily visitor here; he nursed and tended the little children with a tenderness they will not forget. His office was rarely empty; during the half hour before dinner, when work for the day was over, the officers gathered here to talk things over. Sometimes the tinkle of Spofford’s guitar or the notes of the doctor’s flute came from the little office, with its neat shelves of bottles and faint odor of carbolic acid.

On Monday evening, wishing to consult the doctor about a new installment of clothing, I went to his door. There were voices in the office; the doctor had a patient, so I sat down outside to wait. It was a perfect evening; the sky was still flushed with sunset, the first star stood over the tall spire of the little Gothic church at the campo santo. The dusk fell softly; on the heights above Messina, the outlines of the old Saracen fort were blurred in the violet afterglow. The tramp of the sentinel marked time. Another sound broke the twilight stillness, the sound of the royal march played by a band. Where could it come from? In all Messina there had not been found so much as a drum for the procession. The music came nearer and nearer, a new sound mingled with it, the sound of voices singing and cheering. Lanterns were brought out, the mess-room door thrown open. By the light that streamed out I saw a cab, decked with green branches, drawn by a horse gay with white ostrich plumes. Two of our carpenters sat in the cab, which was followed by a pair of ox-carts, filled with chairs occupied by the carpenters’ guests. The three vehicles were surrounded by a crowd of people, singing and cheering.

“Long live the American carpenters!”

Some of our men had spent the day at a neighboring village, that had escaped the earthquake; they had been escorted home by the whole population. The band departed playing the merry march; the sound grew fainter and fainter in the distance. A bright fire lighted up the dark interior of the little shanty, opposite the Camp, built by Zia Maddalena and Cousin Sofia; the tinkle of Spofford’s guitar repeated the gay notes of the march—how good it was to hear the joyous sounds!

“Will you please tell this woman,” the doctor spoke sternly to his interpreter, “that this child has small-pox. If she doesn’t report it immediately to the health authorities it will go hard with her. She may be fined, or imprisoned for neglecting to do so and it may prove fatal to her child. It’s a menace to the community. Please make her understand this fully, as I shall immediately report the case myself.”

The poor mother, dazed and sorrow-stricken, buried her face in the little bundle in her arms and went weeping to the hospital, where the child—all that the earthquake had left to her—would be taken away from her—perhaps never to be returned.

The next morning at breakfast an unmistakable hint was dropped that my visit had best come to an end. Nothing was said about smallpox—it may, indeed, have had nothing to do with the hint. I have always believed, however, that had it not been for the sick baby, I might have enjoyed a few more days at the Mosella.

That day news came to the Camp of Marion Crawford’s death.

It was known that he was ill, but hopes had been held out of his recovery. He had written lately about the profughi he had sheltered in his villa at Sorrento. In these last months, though suffering greatly, he worked early and late for these poor people. He wrote often concerning them. There was no sign of weakness, either in his firm beautiful handwriting or in his brave cheerful words.

It was strange to read the story of his death, sympathetically as it was told, in an Italian paper. He died, at sunset on Good Friday, sitting in his chair looking out over the Bay of Naples towards Vesuvius, just as the procession of Mary the Mother, returning from her search for her lost Son, passed his door. The news that his strong heart had ceased to beat cast a shadow over the Camp. Though not one of the company except ourselves had any personal friendship with him, each one felt that he had lost a friend.

Our great story-teller had told his last story. Not many men have served their generation as well as he. A wonderful man, more romantic than his romances, more poetic than his poetry, more dramatic than his dramas, his death was in keeping with all the rest—he was an idealist to the last!