CHAPTER XX
TOWARD THE TOE
"Heel and toe, and away we go," sang Jack on the morning they were to start for Naples. "We've come down all through the boot leg, Jean, and now we're going toward the toe."
"It isn't really the toe when we stop," returned Jean. "Aunt Helen showed me on the map, and it isn't any further down than the ankle."
"Well, but it's toward the toe."
"Yes," admitted Jack. "There are more donkeys there than anywhere we have been," she went on, "and there are goats that walk up-stairs to be milked."
"We saw them milk goats in the streets of Paris. Don't you remember the man who used to come by early in the morning playing on the pipes, and how we used to get up and look out of the window to see him milk the goats?"
"Yes, but those goats didn't walk up-stairs. Carter told me about the ones in Naples and I am going to look out for them."
"Carter told me a lot of things, too," returned Jack, not to be outdone. "He told me more than he did you. He said there was a cave that was bright blue inside, and that we should go there, and he said there was a great big aquarium, the finest in the world, and – that we'd see the smoke coming out of Vesuvius, and we'd eat oranges off the trees just as we did in California."
"I don't care," said Jean. "I reckon he told me just as much, only I don't remember it all."
"Here, here, you children, stop your bickering," cried Nan, "and look around to see if you have left nothing behind. We must start pretty soon."
"I'm all ready," declared Jean.
"So am I," echoed Jack. But at the last moment there was discovered a hair ribbon and a handkerchief of hers which had to be poked into her mother's bag.
"To think this is the end of our travels, and that the next thing will be to take the steamer for home," said Jo in a woebegone voice when they were settled in the train. "What next, I wonder."
"There is a great deal of talk over all of us," said Nan, "but no one seems exactly to know about next year."
"I think mother and Aunt Helen intend to give themselves up to the subject on the steamer," remarked Mary Lee.
"They're saving it up to keep them from getting seasick," said Nan. "It will be so absorbing, you see, that they won't be able to think of anything else."
"Well," said Jo, "there is one thing; I hope wherever you go that I can go, too."
"Even if it is back to the Wadsworth school?" said Mary Lee.
"Sure." Jo still clung to her slang on occasions. "The Wadsworth school might be worse, and without Frances is much better, so Charley writes."
"Daniella says it would be much better still if we were all there," remarked Nan.
"Natürlich," returned Jo calmly.
"What are you girls talking about?" asked Carter sauntering up to the door of the compartment.
"Of how extremely desirable we are as companions," replied Nan.
"I found that out long ago," answered Carter. "Why don't you talk about something not quite so obvious as that?"
"Bah!" exclaimed Nan. "Don't hand us out any more bouquets, Carter, we have not places to put them when we are traveling. What are they all doing next door?" The train being rather crowded, the party had to divide, Carter and Mr. Kirk finding place in another carriage, the twins with their mother, Miss Helen and the Pinckneys being next to the three older girls, who were established on a seat opposite three quiet German women.
"The twins are eating chocolate, I believe," Carter said, "at least Jean was. Your mother is talking to Mr. Pinckney and your aunt to Miss Dolores. Hal and I have had a smoke, and I left Hal scribbling things in his note-book with a far-away look in his eyes; so, seeing I was not of any special use, I wandered here to cast myself on your tender mercies. What shall I do when you all leave me? I've half a mind to go back, too."
"And not go to Sicily and Greece? Oh, Carter," Nan protested.
"Well, I am a sociable beast and can't see much fun in traveling alone. If I can find a decent fellow to travel with me, well and good. Hal can't stay. He took his holiday early that he might come with me. I don't see why you all have to leave so soon when you could spend the summer over here as well as not. You don't have to get back before school begins, do you?"
"Yes, we shall have to. At least, so far as we are concerned, it wouldn't matter, but mother wants to go back to see about things on the place, and we don't want her to go without us. She is too precious to be parted from. We had enough of that business last year. Now we all, mother included, have made up our minds that we are not going to be parted unless it is absolutely necessary. We shall trot around together from this on."
"Suppose you were in my shoes, and had to live away from your mother and family," said Carter soberly.
"We'd have to do as you do; grin and bear it."
Carter looked a little wistful, for his life was spent apart from his people, as his health did not permit him to live in Richmond where his parents were. "I wish you would all come out to California again," he said.
"Perhaps we shall, some time, but I don't think it will be next winter. Mother may go to Florida or Asheville after Christmas to bridge over the worst of the year, but the rest of us have got to buckle down to hard study."
Here Mr. Kirk sauntered down the corridor to join his cousin, and they stood talking for a few minutes before returning to their places. A little later they appeared again. "It will soon be time to get our first glimpse of Vesuvius," said Carter, "so don't miss it."
From this time on the girls were wildly enthusiastic. First Vesuvius' "misty rim" appeared, and not long after they were all driving through the picturesque, if dirty streets of the city. Exclamations of delight accented the drive. It was, "Oh, look at that!" and "Oh, see there!" all the way to the very door of the hotel, and then as they stood looking off at the magnificent sweep of bay before them, with Capri and Ischia in the distance, no one made a movement to go in but stood murmuring, "How beautiful!"
With natural youthful energy, the young people were not to be persuaded from starting off at once to explore, and that very evening did indeed climb as far as the villa Floridiana, from which they could look down upon the town with its beautiful surroundings. The climb served as an outlet to superfluous energies, and they came back ready to make plans while they had dinner.
They all trooped to the Aquarium first thing the next morning where Jean and Jack were so entertained they could hardly be dragged away.
"It's like being really in the waters under the earth," said Jack. "I think the octopus is so horrible." She stood regarding it with fascinated eyes.
"If you think it is so horrible what makes you stand and gaze at it?" asked Mary Lee.
"Because I can't help it," returned Jack transfixed.
"It's a place I'd like to come to every day," admitted Mary Lee. "Everything is so wonderfully arranged, and as Jack says you feel as if you were really in a room under the water. I love the living coral."
"And those creer, creer crabs are so interesting," put in Jean.
"Creer, creer crabs does sound rather interesting," said Mr. Kirk laughing.
"Did you ever see such wonderfully colored creatures as some of these are?" said Nan, peering through the glass into the watery home of some of the beautiful Mediterranean fish. "What's Jo doing, Carter?"
"She is amusing herself with the electric fish. She seems to find it more alluring than some of these beauties."
"Shocking!" exclaimed Nan, "though it's hard to shock Jo," she went on with an attempt at a pun.
Carter groaned. "If that's the way it's going to affect you we'd better get out as soon as possible."
"Come over here and see these lovely medusæ," said Miss Helen.
"It's a great place, isn't it?" said Carter joining her. "I'd no idea it would be so tremendously interesting."
"It is the greatest place of its kind in the world, I suppose. Its equipments are very complete, and it is resorted to for study by marine biologists all over the world. The Mediterranean is a marvelous source of supply, and the specimens are constantly being added to."
"Wouldn't have missed it for a good deal," remarked Mr. Pinckney trotting up. "We'll have to come here often, youngsters," he nodded to the twins. "When the others are off looking at their old churches and dried up specimens we'll come here and see these fine wet ones, won't we?" And the twins were only too ready to agree to this.
The young men were possessed with a desire to see the castles of San Martino and St. Elmo that afternoon, but started off alone, while the others took carriages and drove about the city, watching the life in the narrow little streets where gay colored flowers on the balconies, and bits of scarlet or blue clothing, hung from the windows, added to the charm of color.
"I think the cool way in which they carry on their household affairs, their trades or anything at all in the streets, is too funny for words," said Jo. "Do look at that old woman cooking macaroni over a handful of charcoal, Nan. Doesn't she remind you of one of the witches in Macbeth?"
"And see that baby with scarce a stitch to cover his dear fat little brown body. And oh, the flowers, the flowers!"
"Nan, Nan, see there's a street with steps all the way up the middle and the donkeys are going up the steps just as easy," cried Jack. "I see a man mending shoes right out on the pavement."
"And a girl with something to sell, something to eat," said Jean. "I wonder what it is."
"Nothing you would like, probably," Nan told her. "Oh, there is a funeral procession. What a queer looking lot of people, and what a gorgeous coffin."
"It is probably empty," Miss Helen told her. "They seldom bear the body in procession, for it is generally taken to the cemetery beforehand."
"Who are the men wearing the white things with holes for their eyes? It looks like a sheet and pillow-case party," declared Jo.
"Those are probably members of the brotherhood to which the dead man belonged," Miss Helen returned.
"It is certainly a great show, like some of the old pictures you see in the galleries," said Nan.
They watched the curious procession move on and then turned their attention to such passing scenes as a man with a tray of selected cigar ends which he had picked up in the streets and which he was offering to buyers, or to a row of booths where fish, meat and macaroni were being cooked and finding a ready sale. In between the moving throng the patient panniered donkeys threaded their way, those laden with vegetables of different hues adding more color to the scene. It was a lively show, sometimes amusing, sometimes pathetic, always interesting, as every one declared.
A morning at the Museum, an afternoon prowling around the shops, looking up souvenirs, a tour of the principal churches for some of the party while the others went again to the Aquarium, took them to their third day which was set apart for an excursion to Pompeii.
"The education I am receiving!" remarked Jo to Nan when they passed in through the entrance of the ancient city. "I have always had a very hazy idea of what Pompeii was like, though I have lately learned when it existed. In fact I was hazy about so many things that are now clear facts in my mind, that I expect to overpower my family completely when I get back. I hope my father won't consider that I have completed my education entirely. Perhaps I'd better refrain from showing off, or he may jerk me out of school for the rest of time. Isn't it fun to get your history lessons in this way?"
"Don't mention it," returned Nan. "Our history lessons are so full of illustrations that we'd be idiots if we didn't absorb facts with every breath. Let me see, how long was the place covered up?"
"Oh, for a mere matter of fifteen centuries I believe. It was first mentioned in history in 310 B. C., so Baedeker says. Nice old place, eh?"
"Don't speak of it in that flippant way," returned Nan. "See, Jo, we are going to have that nice-looking guide. Keep your ears open and don't break in upon my efforts to gain fresh knowledge."
For the rest of the morning the party followed their intelligent guide, a young man who spoke English well, and who informed them that he was from Sorrento, but had been in America for several years.
"It's the most uncanny thing to be walking through these streets and go poking into the houses of a dead city," remarked Nan to her aunt. "I'm glad you told us to be sure to read 'The Last Days of Pompeii,' for I can see it all in my mind's eye much more vividly. I fancy Nydia feeling her way through these places and I can imagine just what went on in these houses now I have read Bulwer's descriptions."
"Impressive, very impressive," asserted Mr. Pinckney gazing at the great amphitheatre. "One doesn't feel in the least old, my dear Mrs. Corner, when he is brought face to face with such antiquity. Why, I am a mere infant compared to it." He chuckled mirthfully.
Jean and Jack amused themselves by skipping back and forth over the stepping-stones set across some of the narrow streets, and were charmed with the little lizards which darted out from between the old stones, the sole residents of that ancient and populous town. Mary Lee looked down at the ruts made by the chariot wheels and remarked, "Just think of all the poor animals that must have perished in that dreadful time."
"As for the rest," as Jo said, "they were walking exclamation points. To come upon a town buried for centuries, and then to walk into its kitchens to see its pots and pans, to come upon those great baths and to go poking around the carefully retired courts and bedrooms, dear me, it does set one to conjecturing and exclaiming."
"I love the color, the decorations, the statues and all that," said Nan. "I'm glad they had tried to make it look something as it used to, and have reëstablished gardens so as to give you an idea of what it was like in the long ago."
Believing that the luncheon hour would not find them ready to leave the ruins they had provided themselves with lunch so they could stay as late as they cared to, the evening light giving an added fascination to the silent city.
"It's been a great day," said Carter as they started for the railway station.
"Haven't we had a good time?" said Jack cordially. "What are you going to do this evening, Carter?"
"Don't know, Jaquita. I may go to the opera, if we get back in time. I know very well what you will do."
"What?"
"Tumble into your little bed and go to sleep in about two minutes," returned Carter laughing.
They were all so tired that opera was not to be thought of, and it was decided to put off that pleasure till the next evening when all went except Mrs. Corner and the twins.
"I suppose Nan will be snippy and will say it's not worth listening to because the music is not Wagner's," said Mary Lee as they started out through the gay streets.
"Indeed I shall not," returned Nan indignantly. "I like Wagner best, of course, but I can enjoy anything good, I hope."
"I've never reached the place where I can appreciate Wagner," confessed Jo.
"You're not studying music," Nan explained. "If you were you would feel differently. I didn't care so much for it either till Frau Burg-Schmidt introduced me to the mysteries. Now that I can understand it I think it is the greatest ever."
"Old Rossini and Donizetti and those fellows are good enough for me," declared Carter.
Nan had her own ideas, but she only whispered to her aunt, "He has never heard Knote sing Siegfried or Tannhauser." She was not going to spoil the evening by futile argument.
It was by no means spoiled, however, for the great opera house of San Carlo provided them with a fine caste for the light music they heard. It was a very different and less attentive audience from that with which Nan had grown so familiar in Munich, but as she gravely explained, "The character of the music is so very different," a remark which caused Miss Helen to smile and Jo to laugh outright, so very superior was Nan's tone.
A flood of sunshine, blue Italian skies, dancing blue waters in the lovely bay greeted them the next morning. "This is the day that was made for our trip to Capri and the Blue Grotto," announced Miss Helen when they were taking breakfast. "So get ready, girls. Pack your bags, for we shall stop off at Sorrento for a few days."
Off flew the girls, for there was but a short time before the steamer would start on its daily trip. There was bustle enough for the next fifteen minutes, and then one after another appeared, ready to go.
"This will be the best of all," said Mary Lee. "I feel it."
"What do you do when you get there?" asked Jean.
"Get where?"
"To wherever we are going. I don't know exactly where it is. One of you says Capri, another talks about Sorrento, and Jack declares it is the Blue Grotto."
"It is all three," Mary Lee told her. "We stop at the Blue Grotto first, then we go to Capri and have our lunch, and after that we go to Sorrento."
"Oh!" Jean understood. She was somewhat fearful of the Blue Grotto, and was rather scared when the little boat shot into the small opening, and the wonderful blue cave was before her. She buried her face in her mother's lap and would not look up at first, but a call from Jack, who was in the next boat with Carter, caused her to be braver. "I wasn't scared a bit, was I, Carter?" sang out Jack.
This part of the trip was soon over and they went on to Capri, where they were ready to linger longer than the time allowed. "Capri is too charming for words. Must we leave it?" the girls said to their elders.
"My dears, if we stopped at all the charming places we should never get home," Mrs. Corner told them. "You will have to be satisfied with a little stop at Sorrento this time."
"Capri will be here for ages yet," said Carter, "and when we get to be tottering old people, Jack, we will come here to celebrate our golden wedding."
"Silly!" was all the answer Jack vouchsafed.
A babble of clamoring voices surrounded their steamer which suddenly came to a standstill. "What in the world is the matter?" said Mary Lee jumping up.
"Come along, girls," Mr. Pinckney called to them, and they found they must leave the steamer for one of the small rowboats rocking on the water alongside. The clamor of voices calling out the names of the various hotels of Sorrento issued from these. Mr. Pinckney shouted out the name of the one they had selected, and one after another descended to reëmbark and to be rowed shoreward to an ancient pier at the foot of the lofty crags.
"Now," said Jean settling herself, "we are going to eat oranges for three whole days."
Not only oranges, but all manner of good things did their hotel afford. Roses rioted in its gardens, beautiful views were seen from their windows, a fair orange grove became their happy retreat. Their three days in this loveliest of spots seemed all too short, so, throwing all other plans aside, they lingered too happy and content to care for anything further.
If it was a glad time to the Corners, to at least two of the party it seemed a Paradise, the world forgot. It was Jack who first learned what every one else suspected. She had been walking with Mr. Pinckney in the orange grove the last evening of their stay at Sorrento. They stopped to sit down on one of the old stone seats from which they could look out at the glorious view of Naples, Vesuvius, Capri and Ischia which was spread out before them.
Presently Mr. Pinckney gave a long sigh. "Are you sighing because it is so beautiful?" asked Jack solicitously, "or because you ate too much supper?"
In spite of himself Mr. Pinckney could not help from laughing, his jolly old chuckle, but almost immediately became serious again. "It is something else, Jack," he said. "I'm going to lose my little girl."
"You don't mean me, do you?" said Jack after a moment's pause. She could not imagine any other whom he would call his little girl.
"No, not you. I hope we shall not lose you for a great many years. I mean, my dear, that I am doing as you told me to do there in Venice. I am trying not to be a selfish old fellow and am consenting to give up Miss Dolores because it will make her happy."
Jack's arms went around his neck and she imprinted a hearty kiss upon his cheek. "You darling!" she exclaimed. "I think you are too sweet for words."
This was too much for him and he again broke into a laugh. "I'm glad you approve," he said, "but while you are so glad for that granddaughter of mine, you haven't a word of sympathy for me. What is to become of me?"
"Why, of course you will be happy, too. Aren't they going to live with you?"
"Yes, that dear Dolly of mine wouldn't say yes otherwise."
"Of course she wouldn't. Well, then, won't you have her and Mr. Kirk both, and Nan and Mary Lee and Jean and me besides?" Another mighty hug and kiss.
"Bless your heart, when I get to feeling down-hearted I'll send for you. I'll make a bargain with your mother this very night."
"I think sometimes you might come and see us where we are," returned Jack, "though, of course, I shall always like to go to see you," she added hastily.
"It's a bargain," he said. "When you can't come to me then I will go to you, whenever I feel that I am in the way at home."
"Oh, but you were never in the way," Jack hastened to assure him, then she added mirthfully, "except that first time I saw you when I ran into you."
The recollection of this put Mr. Pinckney into a happier humor, and the two went up to the house to tell their news to the family.
And so when, a week later, they all turned away from the beautiful land where they had enjoyed so many good times, to set out upon the journey home, it was not only to school and their native town that they looked forward, but to the Christmas wedding of their dear and lovely friend Miss Dolores, when for the first time each of the four Corners would perform the office of bridesmaid.