Lucia Rudini: Somewhere in Italy

Lucia Rudini folded her arms across her gaily-colored bodice, tilted her dark head to one side and laughed.

"I see you, little lazy bones," she said. "Wake up!"

A small body curled into a ball in the grass at her feet moved slightly, and a sleepy voice whimpered, "Oh, Lucia, go away. I was having such a nice dream about our soldiers up there, and I was just killing a whole regiment of Austrians, and now you come and spoil it."

A curly black head appeared above the tops of the flowers, and two reproachful brown eyes stared up at her.

Lucia laughed again. "Poor Beppino, some one is always disturbing your fine dreams, aren't they? But come now, I have something far better than dreams for you," she coaxed.

"What?" Beppi was on his feet in an instant, and the sleepy look completely disappeared.

"Ha, ha, now you are curious," Lucia teased, "aren't you? Well, you shan't see what I have, until you promise to do what I ask."

Beppi's round eyes narrowed, and a cunning expression appeared in their velvety depth.

"I suppose I am not to tell Nana that you left the house before sunrise this morning," he said.

Lucia looked at him for a brief moment in startled surprise, then she replied quickly, "No, that is not it at all. What harm would it do if you told Nana? I am often up before sunrise."

"Yes, but you don't go to the mountains," Beppi interrupted. "Oh, I saw you walking smack into the guns. What were you doing?" He dropped his threatening tone, so incongruous with his tiny body, and coaxed softly, "please tell me, sister mine."

"Silly head!" Lucia was breathing freely again, "there is nothing to tell. I heard the guns all night, and they made me restless, so I went for a walk. Go and tell Nana if you like, I don't care."

Beppi's small mind returned to the subject at hand.

"Then if it isn't that, what is it you want me to do?" he inquired, and continued without giving his sister time to reply. "It's to take care of them, I suppose," he grumbled, pointing a browned berry-stained little finger at a herd of goats that were grazing contentedly a little farther down the slope.

"Yes, that's it, and good care of them too," Lucia replied. "You are not to go to sleep again, remember, and be sure and watch Garibaldi, or she will stray away and get lost."

"And a good riddance too," Beppi commented under his breath.

He did not share in the general admiration for the "Illustrious and Gentile Se?ora Garibaldi," the favorite goat of his sister's herd. Perhaps the vivid recollection of Garibaldi's hard head may have accounted for his aversion. Lucia heard his remark and was quick to defend her pet.

"Aren't you ashamed to speak so?" she exclaimed, "I've a good mind not to give you the candy after all."

"Oh, Lucia, please, please!" Beppi begged. "I will take such good care of them, I promise, and if you like, I will pick the tenderest grass for old crosspatch," he added grudgingly.

Lucia smiled in triumph, and from the pocket of her dress she pulled out a small pink paper bag.

"Here you are then," she said; "and I won't be away very long. I am just going to see Maria for a few minutes."

Beppi caught the bag as she tossed it, and lingered over the opening of it. He wanted to prolong his pleasure as long as possible. Candy in war times was a treat and one that the Rudinis seldom indulged in.

As if to echo his thoughts, Lucia called back over her shoulder as she walked away, "Don't eat them fast, for they are the last you will get for a long time."

Beppi did not bother to reply, but he acted on the advice, and selected a big lemon drop that looked hard and everlasting, and set about sucking it contentedly.

Lucia walked quickly over the grass to a small white-washed cottage a little distance away. She approached it from the side and peeked through one of the tiny windows. Old Nana Rudini, her grandmother, was sitting in a low chair beside the table in the low-ceilinged room. Her head nodded drowsily, and the white lace that she was making lay neglected in her lap. Lucia smiled to herself in satisfaction and stole gently away from the window.

The Rudinis lived about a mile beyond the north gate of Cellino, an old Italian town built on the summit of a hill. Cellino was not sufficiently important to appear in the guide books, but it boasted of two possessions above its neighbors,-a beautiful old church opposite the market place, and a broad stone wall that dated back to the days of Roman supremacy. It was still in perfect preservation, and completely surrounded the town giving it the appearance of a mediaeval fortress, rather than a twentieth century village. Two roads led to it, one from the south through the Porto Romano, and one from the north, up-hill and from the valley below. It was up the latter that Lucia walked. She was in a hurry and she swung along with a firm, graceful step, her head, crowned by its heavy dark hair, held high and her shoulders straight.

The soldier on guard at the gate watched her as she drew nearer. She was a pleasing picture in her bright-colored gown against the glaring sun on the dusty white road. Roderigo Vicello had only arrived that morning in Cellino, and Lucia was not the familiar little figure to him that she was to the other soldiers. But she was none the less welcome for that, after the monotony of the day, and Roderigo as she came nearer straightened up self-consciously and tilted his black patent leather hat with its rakish cluster of cock feathers a little more to one side.

"Good day, Se?orina," he said smiling, as Lucia paused in the grateful shadow of the wall to catch her breath.

"Good day to you," she replied good-naturedly.

"You're new, aren't you? I never saw you before. Where is Paolo?"

"Paolo and his regiment go up to the front this afternoon," Roderigo replied. "We have just come to relieve them for a short time, then we too will follow."

Lucia nodded. "You come from the south, don't you?" she inquired, looking at him with frank admiration; "from near Napoli I should guess by your speech."

Roderigo laughed. "You guess right, I do, and now it is my turn to ask questions. Where do you come from?"

"Down there about a mile," Lucia pointed, "in the white cottage by the road."

Roderigo looked at the dark hair and eyes and the gaudily colored dress before him, and shook his head.

"Now perhaps," he admitted, "but you were born in the south where the sun really shines and the sky is blue and not a dull gray, or else where did you come by those eyes and those straight shoulders?"

Lucia looked up at the dazzling sky above her and laughed.

"And I suppose that spot is Napoli," she teased. "Well, you don't guess as well as I do, for I was born here and I have lived here all my life."

"'All my life,'" Roderigo mimicked. "How very long you make that sound, Se?orina, and yet you look no older than my little sister."

Lucia drew herself up to her full height and did not deign a direct reply.

"Fourteen years is a long time, Se?or," she said gravely, "when you have many worries."

"But you are too young to have many worries," Roderigo protested; "or I beg your pardon, perhaps you have some one up there?" he pointed to the north, where the high peaks of the Alps were visible at no great distance.

"No, not now," Lucia replied; "for my father was killed a year ago."

Roderigo was silent for a little, then he raised one shoulder in a characteristic shrug.

"War," he said slowly. "We all have our turn."

Lucia nodded and returned almost at once to her gay mood.

"But you are still wondering how I got my black hair and eyes up here," she laughed.

"Well, I will tell you. My mother came from your beautiful Napoli, and Nana, that is my grandmother, says I inherited my foolish love of gay clothes from her. Nana does not like gay clothes, but my father always liked me to wear them."

"Then your mother is dead too?" Roderigo asked respectfully.

"When I was a little girl, and when Beppino was a tiny baby. Beppi is my little brother," Lucia explained.

Roderigo's eyes were shining with delight. There was something in Lucia's soft tones that filled his homesick heart with joy. She was so different from most of the girls from the north, with their strange high voices and unfriendly manners. If she wasn't exactly from the south she was near it. He wanted to sit down beside her and tell her all about his home and his family, for he was very young and very homesick, but Lucia decreed otherwise.

"Now do see what you have done," she scolded suddenly. "You have kept me talking here until the sun is well down, and I will have to hurry if I want to see Maria and return home before Nana misses me. So much for gabbing on the high road with some one who should be watching for suspicious spies instead of asking questions," she finished with a provoking toss of her head.

Which sentence, considering that she had asked the first questions herself, was unjust. Roderigo, however, did not seem to resent the blame laid upon him. He did not even offer to contradict, but watched Lucia until she disappeared around a corner a few streets beyond the gate, and then he turned resolutely about and scanned the road with searching determination, as if he really believed that the open, smiling country about him might be concealing a spy.

When Lucia disappeared around the comer of the narrow street that led to the market place, she stopped long enough to laugh softly to herself.

"The great silly! He took all the blame himself instead of boxing my ears for being impertinent. A fine soldier he'll make! If I can scare him, what will the guns do?" she said aloud, and then with a roguish gleam of mischief in her eyes she hurried on.

The narrow side streets through which she passed were almost deserted, but when she reached the market place it was thronged with people. Every one was out to look at the new troops, and in the little square the great white umbrellas over the market stalls were surrounded by soldiers. Their picturesque uniforms added a gala note to the commonplace little scene.

Lucia elbowed her way through the jostling, laughing men to a certain umbrella, a little to one side of the open space left clear before the church.