The Four Corners Abroad

"What is your charge?" asked Miss Helen, turning to the boy.

He named a moderate enough price with all the gravity possible.

"It's worth it," murmured Carter, "just to see the little rat and his airs."

"Very well," agreed Miss Helen, "you may come with us. I don't suppose he knows a thing or will do anything right," she said to the others, "but I have my Baedeker with me, and he is funny."

The boy strode ahead, taking as mighty steps as his short legs would permit, and presently began his lecture, waving a small hand in the direction of the Temple of Saturn, and naming the buildings correctly enough. When he thought his party had exhausted the resources above he turned abruptly. "Come along," he said peremptorily, and with long strides marched ahead.

"He takes the Cook guides for his pattern," laughed Miss Helen. The boy did not hear, but with the same air of importance led his party over the ground. At the slightest word of appreciation, he would smite his breast and say, "Me verra clever." Before he had finished with them he had taken them to the Capitoline Hill, had procured them post-cards at a figure less than that usually charged, had marched them to the church of Santa Maria in Arcoeli that they might view the wonder-working bambino laden with jewels, and in his queer jargon of broken English told them many things with such an air of gravity as convulsed them. Jo once in a while managed to reach the boy in him, and his merry laugh, in strong contrast to his costume and his general manner, was the more contagious.

He had really fulfilled his promise so well, and as Carter said, was "such an amusing little rat" that the others of the party employed him later and as a matter of course Jack brought him out wonderfully, and was able to learn more from him than any one else.

At the close of the first day, each was so enthusiastic about what he or she had seen that the different parties followed the example of one another the next day, a sort of ladies' change, Jo said, though after this they divided up in various ways. Sometimes it was Mr. Pinckney who carried off all four Corners; again it would be two of these who would go in one direction and two in another. At another time the whole company of eleven would take carriages for an afternoon's drive or sightseeing, finally having supper at some out-of-door restaurant, and coming home through the lighted streets, happy though tired.

Nan had her sight of the Coliseum by moonlight, and was stirred to the depths by the grandeur and solemnity of the scene. It was an evening not to be forgotten by any of them, and it may be remarked in passing that it was a specially happy one to Miss Dolores and Mr. Kirk.

So day after day passed until one morning Mrs. Corner remarked, "If we expect to reach Naples before it is too hot, we shall have to think of getting there, for May is passing."

"Leave Rome?" exclaimed the girls.

"Don't you want to see Naples?"

"Of course, but why can't we – " began Mary Lee.

"Do what?"

"I don't know. Make time stand still, I suppose."

"Rome will remain, dear child, and you can come back some day."

"I know, and of course we have been here over two weeks now. Well, mother, I suppose we shall have to go."

"Don't say it so mournfully, my child. You will be delighted with Naples, with Sorrento, Amalfi, Capri, Pompeii."

"Oh, I know it. This earth has more in it than one can well see in a short lifetime. I can't understand how people can ever be bored."

"Like that awful Mrs. Ritchie on the steamer," said Nan; "she didn't know what places there were left to visit for she and her daughter had been everywhere. Shall you ever forget her blasé look and set smile?"

"Her name just suited her," declared Jo. "She was just rich and nothing else. I was so pleased when Miss Helen drew her out, and found that she had been only to the big cities and that she didn't know anything but shops, theatres and restaurants."

"There is no danger of this crowd ever getting bored," remarked Nan. "The trouble is we are too enthusiastic, for we like the little simple things as much as the big ones, and when we have exhausted our vocabularies over some small matter we have no words left to express what we feel for the great ones. Is go the word, mother?"

"Yes, I think it must be if we are to see anything of southern Italy before we sail for – "

"Home, home, sweet home," broke in a chorus of voices.

"And that is another thing to be enthusiastic about," said Nan at the close of the outburst. "There is the getting back and the seeing all the dear old places and the darling people."

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?"