: Giannella by Fraser Hugh Mrs - Orphans Fiction; Young women Fiction; Mate selection Fiction; Rome (Italy) Fiction; Household employees Fiction; Foster children Fiction

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GIANNELLA

BY MRS. HUGH FRASER

ST. LOUIS, MO., 1909 PUBLISHED BY B. HERDER 17 SOUTH BROADWAY

--BECKTOLD-- PRINTING AND BOOK MFG. CO. ST. LOUIS, MO.

GIANNELLA

"And now, what are we to do about the child? Cannot you think of something, Carl?"

Carl stooped down to disentangle some very small fingers which had been busy with his bootlaces, and as the baby crawled away to find fresh mischief he straightened himself and watched her with a ruefully puzzled expression.

"Upon my word, Hans," he said at last, "I can think of nothing but the Piet?. It seems hard, but all the boys are as poor as ourselves. The only married one is Sigersen, and his wife is away--and not much good when she is at home. The Vice-consul said we had better put the child in the Rota--and I am afraid that is what we shall have to do. The nuns will keep any name and address they find pinned on her clothes, and if things go better with us, or if it should turn out that poor Brockmann had any relations, and they ever inquire for her, we shall know where to look for her."

The speakers were two Scandinavian painters, young and kind and poor, members of the little brotherhood which, year in, year out, finds its way from the shores of the bleak North Sea to the blue and gold of the Mediterranean, to the marbles and the ilexes, to the campagna and the hills; and have taken root in the classic, teeming soil which is Rome. A friend and comrade, Niels Brockmann, had died a day or two before this little colloquy took place, and he had left behind him a dismantled studio, some good but unfinished studies, and a baby girl whose pretty young mother had not survived her birth. Brockmann had idolized the flaxen-haired mite for one year, and then had ended his existence by catching a deadly chill while sketching in some beautiful but malarious spot. The brotherhood had nursed him loyally and buried him decently, but they were hopelessly perplexed as to how to dispose of his daughter. Most of them lived on two or three pauls a day, everything else being saved for studio rent and artists' materials; and when one was lucky enough to sell a picture, there was a jolly supper for everybody at the Lepre, with mighty songs and much beer; and then what remained of the money was unhesitatingly divided among the poor devils who were most deeply in debt to landlord or colorman.

There was no room for a baby in that straitly-lodged, big-hearted community, and Hans Stravenkilde had been driven to lay the case before the Vice-consul of his nationality, hoping that he would undertake the charge. But the official, a banker and a Roman, refused to be responsible for the child in any way. Indeed, he was indignant at the mere suggestion. He told Hans that if he were to take on all the destitute orphans that pauper foreigners left behind them, he would soon turn his house into a foundling hospital. And what was the Piet? for, but just such waifs, he would like to know? Pin the child's name on her clothes and drop her into the Rota. Good-morning.

And Hans had departed and walked home, much depressed. He had stopped a moment on his way, to look at the cushioned dumb-waiter open to the street in the wall of the Piet?; he knew that one or other of the nuns was stationed behind it through every minute of the night and day, to turn it inwards the instant a child had been laid on the pillow, to gather the poor abandoned little thing into safety and fellowship with many hundreds of others who were sheltered behind those huge charitable walls, and were better fed, better loved, better educated than most of them would ever have been in their own homes. Hans knew all about it, yet his heart ached at the thought of leaving this particular baby there, and Carl fully shared his unwillingness. He had just picked up Giannella and was making funny faces at her, so that the little creature first seemed inclined to cry; then she caught the smile in her tormentor's blue eyes and laughed aloud.

At this a thin, dark woman in peasant's dress raised herself from where she had been gathering up some littered papers in a corner, and came towards the young men, holding out her arms to the child, who at once sprang into them with the confidence of long familiarity. The woman smoothed down the rumpled skirt, wiped off the dust which the small pink palms had gathered on the floor, and then stood looking at the two friends of her late master. They had been speaking in their own language, but she knew they were talking about the baby, and she had caught the words "Piet?" and "Rota."

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