Historic Boyhoods Part 21

"Exactly," said the father, with a smile at the boy's serious manner.

Giuseppe was not usually very thoughtful.

"How long do you think the refugees will have to go on fighting, father, before the enemy are finally driven out of our land?"

"Oh, they'll have to fight for years and years, and perhaps they'll never win, for the enemy is much stronger than we Italians."

"Then," said Giuseppe, "I'm glad, for that will give Cesare and Raffaelle and me a chance to help them fight. I'm going to be a refugee myself some day. Will you teach me, father, how to use a sword?"

"All in good time," said the man, smiling. "You've got your hands full learning the points of the compa.s.s just now."

For some reason Giuseppe could not get the tall, black-haired man out of his mind, and the next day, at recess, he told his two friends of his meeting with him and what he had learned about him.

"Couldn't we find him or another like him, this afternoon?" suggested Cesare, very much interested.

"We'll hunt," agreed Giuseppe. "A refugee could tell us much better stories than those old sailors can."

After school the three boys looked through the main streets of Nice, but saw no one asking for alms for the cause of Italy. They went down to the harbor, but there were no such men there. Finally in a little square they came upon the very man Giuseppe had seen the day before. He was sitting on the gra.s.s under a tree, and seemed to be asleep, for his head was sunk on his folded arms. They crossed over to him quietly. Although the day was warm he had a greatcoat fastened about his shoulders and a soft, broad-brimmed hat pulled down upon his head. He looked tired out.

The three boys stood in front of the man, and finally his eyes opened.

He smiled as he saw them staring at him. "What do you want with me, signors?" said he.

Giuseppe dropped on to the gra.s.s beside him. "I know now what you meant when you said the refugees of Italy yesterday," he explained. "We three boys mean to be refugees some day. We've made a vow that we'll fight the Austrians until there isn't one of the three of us left. We'd like very much to hear some of the things you've done."

The man threw back his cloak and sat up a trifle straighten "Three future refugees!" he exclaimed. "The world moves! You want to be pus.h.i.+ng me away already, do you? Sit down, I'll tell you what I can."

The boys sat in front of him, and listened with rapt attention while he told them that his home was in a little town half-way between Nice and Genoa, that he was a member of a secret society called the Carbonari, and that the first rule of that society was that a man must do exactly as he was told without asking why. Not long before he had received a secret message telling him to go to the city of Milan, taking his sword and pistols with him. He had left his wife and children and gone to Milan, and there he had waited a long time while the leaders of the society planned to surprise the Austrian garrison and drive the troops out of the city.

The night of the attempt finally arrived but some one had betrayed them.

No sooner had they met at the place agreed on than word came that they must scatter instantly if they wanted to escape the Austrian bayonets.

Each had gone his own way, trying to get as far from Milan as he could.

He had managed to get to Nice, where he was near the French border, and could cross it at any time. Meanwhile he and the other refugees had to ask alms or starve.

The boys had heard of the society of the Carbonari which had spread all over Italy, and they listened to this story by one of its members with the greatest interest. They asked him a great many questions, but he would only answer a few of them. He only told them such facts as were public property; inquiries about the society itself were met with a smile and a shake of the head. Before they left him they made him take the few coins they had in their pockets, to help him and other refugees of their country. They also made him write their names on a piece of paper so that when the next uprising should come they might be sent for.

And they solemnly organized a secret society among themselves to last until the time when they would be old enough to join the Carbonari.

From that day Giuseppe kept his eyes open for any other refugees who might be roaming through the streets of Nice. Occasionally he found some war-worn soldier or sailor whom the authorities allowed to sit in the sun in one of the city squares or down on the quays, but younger and more active refugees were scarce, and preferred to cross the frontier to Ma.r.s.eilles.

Giuseppe and Raffaelle and Cesare, however, were not to be discouraged, and as soon as they could they laid their hands on long cloaks and broad-brimmed hats, and dressed as nearly as possible like their black-haired friend. They invented countersigns and mottoes, planned conspiracies, and patterned themselves as nearly after the Carbonari as they could. But there was no new uprising at that time, and so after a while the boys lost interest in the game of conspiracy.

His old love of the sea came back more strongly than ever to Giuseppe, and he begged his father to take him with him on his next cruise. His mother thought he was too young to leave the Church school, but the boy, already large and strong for his years, was growing very restless, and there was no telling what mischief he might get into if he were kept at home.

In the long evenings he was always asking his father to describe to him the strange cities he had visited on his travels. He begged him especially to tell him about Rome and her seven wonderful hills, the city which from his earliest childhood had fascinated him more than any other place in the world.

"Do you think I'll ever get to Rome, father?" Giuseppe would ask.

"Yes. We'll go there together some day before long, little son," his father would answer.

So indeed they did. When Giuseppe was about fifteen years old he was allowed to make his first long voyage on a brigantine bound from Nice to Odessa, and a year later he sailed on his father's felucca to Rome. The city of the Caesars seemed even more wonderful than he had dreamed. It was the heart of the world to him, and he never forgot the deep impression that first sight of it made upon him.

After his first voyage the young Garibaldi sailed with many captains and saw a great deal of the world, rounding Cape Horn, voyaging to the far north, and even crossing the Atlantic and visiting South America. He was always deeply interested in strange lands; he loved the thrill of any adventure, and at the sight of an act of injustice or cruelty nothing could keep him from going at once to the rescue.

When he was in South America he heard that the Italians were rising against their foreign masters and were planning to fight for freedom. He sailed for home instantly, and no sooner did he land than he was leading a company of friends to join the Italian army. He was fearless, generous, and as open-hearted as a child; wherever he went men flocked to his command; within a few months the young man was virtually general of an army, and fighting and winning battle after battle in the Alps. At the end of a year his fame had crossed Europe.

The freedom of Italy, however, was not won in a single campaign.

Although Garibaldi's troops were victorious, some of the other Italian armies were not, and before long that first war of independence came to an end. For a time the Austrians' hold over the cities of Italy seemed stronger than ever, and Garibaldi and many of his friends were forced to leave their homes and seek refuge in other countries. Again Garibaldi crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and this time he went to New York, and took up the trade of candle-maker, living in a small frame house on Staten Island. He liked Americans; they understood him and his burning desire for Italian freedom better than any other foreigners he met.

He stayed on Staten Island until the chance came for him to go to sea again as captain of a merchantman, and after that it was only a short time before he was again in the Alps, his sword drawn, his devoted volunteers behind him.

It was long before the dream of Italian patriots came true and Rome became the capital of a united country, but during those years Garibaldi led crusade after crusade. He wore the simple costume of an Italian peasant, with a red s.h.i.+rt which was copied by all his men. This red-s.h.i.+rted army swept the enemy out of Sicily and Naples, drove them back through the Alps, won so continually that the superst.i.tious Neapolitans believed that their leader must be in league with the Evil One. But the people of Italy wors.h.i.+ped this general beyond all their other heroes.

Even their praises could not spoil the simplicity of Garibaldi's nature.

When his work was done he went home to live quietly with his family. The friends of his boyhood found him very little changed, the same lover of Italy and the sea, the same adventurous, generous spirit he had been as a youth in Nice.

In those youthful days his boy friends had followed him without question, now the whole of Italy looked to him as their leader; he had succeeded in doing what hundreds of other men had dreamed of doing, driving the Austrians permanently out of the peninsula, and restoring to his countrymen the ancient liberty of Italy. Yet whether as a boy upon the Mediterranean or as the liberator of a nation he was always the same frank, straightforward, high-minded Giuseppe Garibaldi.

XIX

Abraham Lincoln

The Boy of the American Wilderness: 1809-1865

Squire Josiah Crawford was seated on the porch of his house in Gentryville, Indiana, one spring afternoon when a small boy called to see him. The Squire was a testy old man, not very fond of boys, and he glanced up over his book, impatient and annoyed at the interruption.

"What do you want here?" he demanded.

The boy had pulled off his racc.o.o.n-skin cap, and stood holding it in his hand while he eyed the old man.

"They say down at the store, sir," said the boy, "that you have a 'Life of George Was.h.i.+ngton,' I'd like mighty well to read it."

The Squire peered closer at his visitor, surprised out of his annoyance at the words. He looked over the boy, carefully examining his long, lank figure, the tangled ma.s.s of black hair, his deep-set eyes, and large mouth. He was evidently from some poor country family. His clothes were home-made, and the trousers were shrunk until they barely reached below his knees.

"What's your name, boy?" asked the Squire.

"Abe Lincoln, son of Tom Lincoln, down on Pidgeon Creek."

The Squire said to himself: "It must be that Tom Lincoln, who, folks say, is a ne'er-do-well and moves from place to place every year because he can't make his farm support him." Then he said, aloud, to the boy: "What do you want with my 'Life of Was.h.i.+ngton'?"

"I've been learning about him at school, and I'd like to know more."

The old man studied the boy in silence for some moments; something about the lad seemed to attract him. Finally he said: "Can I trust you to take good care of the book if I lend it to you?"

"As good care," said the boy, "as if it was made of gold, if you'd only please let me have it for a week."

His eyes were so eager that the old man could not withstand them. "Wait here a minute," he said, and went into the house. When he returned he brought the coveted volume with him, and handed it to the boy. "There it is," said he: "I'm going to let you have it, but be sure it doesn't come to harm down on Pidgeon Creek."