CHAPTER XIII

The idea that her child might attain the highest honor within the reach of any man on earth had stirred Angela to the depths and given new meaning and dignity to life. She lifted her head. She had borne a child whose word might bend a million wills to his. The world was a bigger, nobler place in which to live.

She was stirred with sudden purpose to leave no stone unturned to bring this dream to pass. She bought books of the lives of the presidents. Twice she read the life of Abraham Lincoln, the humble backwoodsman rail-splitter who became president.

But her vivid Italian imagination loved the stories of George Washington, the first president, best. He was nearest in history to Columbus, the Italian who discovered America. She read the legends of little George Washington’s adventures and began to play the mighty drama of her own son’s career by guiding his feet in the same path.

She had laughed immoderately over George cutting his father’s cherry-tree. She was sure her bambino was capable of that! If George cut cherry-trees, of course his father had cherries to eat. She got at once a lot of cherries and fed them to the boy, laughing and nursing her dream.

She found a picture of Washington in his Colonial dress. The style pleased her fancy. She went forthwith, bought the material and made her boy a suit with cockade hat exactly like it.

Tommaso was amazed on entering the living-room from the fruit store to find the kid arrayed in the strange garb. Angela was stuffing some cotton under the cockade hat to make it fit, studying the picture to be sure of the effect.

When she explained, Tommaso joined in the play with equal zest.

When the boy had exhausted the admiration of his father and mother he sallied forth into the street to meet his little friends and show his clothes.

He had scarcely cleared the door when “Sausage” emerged from the Schultz delicatessen store and the two met halfway. No hard feelings had lingered from their fight in the old Armory. Sausage’s admiration was boundless. He had just persuaded little Tommaso to go home and show them to his own mother when they turned and saw Meyer unloading a truck filled with curious looking long boxes.

They ran up to investigate just as a case fell and a gun dropped to the pavement.

The kids rushed to Benda’s to tell Angela and Tommaso.

“I told you that man was no good!” Angela exclaimed. “Go--and see quick and we tell Vasa’--”

Tommaso hurried across the street and found Meyer standing over the broken case. Meyer faced the Italian without ceremony:

“Cost your life to open your yap about these guns--see?”

Tommaso snapped his finger in the other’s face:

“Go t’ell!”

He turned on his heel to go, saw his wife and the children near, rushed back and snapped his finger again in Meyer’s face:

“Go t’ell two times--see--two times!”

Meyer merely held his gaze in a moment of angry silence and turned to his work.

Tommaso rushed back into his flat, pushed things from the table, seized a pen and wrote a hurried note to his leader.

CONGRESSMAN VASA:

Men unload guns in our street. He say killa me if I tell. I tell him go t’ell. I tell him go t’ell two times. I Americano. My kid he be president--maybe--

TOMMASO BENDA.

He hurried Angela into her best new American cut dress and sent her with the boy to Long Island to tell Vassar.

The visit all but ended in a tragedy for poor Angela. While searching the spacious Holland grounds for her leader, the boy suddenly spied a hatchet with which the master had been mending a box in which he was cultivating a precious orange-tree that had been carefully guarded in a hothouse during the winter months.

The kid saw his chance to emulate the example of George Washington. He lost no time. The tree was well hacked before Holland pounced upon him.

The old man had him by the ear when Angela dashed to the rescue. She saw the scarred tree with horror and her apologies were profuse.

“Ah, pardon, signor! You see his little suit--he play George Wash--and cutta the cherry-tree--”

She paused and shook the boy fiercely.

“Ah--you maka me seek!”

Holland began to smile at the roguish beauty of the boy glancing up from the corners of his dark, beautiful eyes.

Vassar, Virginia, Zonia and Marya hearing the commotion, rushed up.

Angela extended her apologies to all.

“You see, he really think he’s leetle George Wash--I mak him speak his piece--you like to hear it?”

Her offer was greeted by a chorus of approval.

Angela fixed the child with a stern look.

“Speeka your piece!”

The boy shook his head.

“Speeka-your-piece!” The order was a threat this time and little Tommaso yielded.

Bowing gracefully, he faced the group and recited with brave accent:

My Country, ’tis of thee I cutta the cherry-tree, Sweet land of libertee My name is George Wash!

He bowed again as all laughed and applauded. Virginia took him in her arms and kissed him. While she was yet complimenting the boy on his fine speech Angela whispered to Vassar:

“My man Tommaso--he want to see you, signor! He send this--”

She slipped the note into Vassar’s hand, repeated her apologies and hurried from the lawn, shaking Tommaso:

“Ah, you leetle mik! You maka me seek--! I tella you play George Wash and cutta the cherry-tree--and oh, my Mother of God! You play hell and cutta the _orange_-tree!”

Little Tommaso took the scolding philosophically. Orange or cherry-trees were all the same to him. He merely answered his mother’s dramatic rage with a twinkle of his eye until she stooped at last and kissed him.