CHAPTER II – UNDER THE SEPTEMBER STARS

“Captured by Sanfordites!” exclaimed Robin dramatically. “What fate is left to us now?” Despite her tragic utterance, she proceeded to a vigorous hand-shaking with Muriel.

“Now why couldn’t you have stayed upstairs like nice children and praised our modest efforts in your behalf instead of prancing down stairs to head us off?” inquired Phyllis in pretended disgust. “Not one of you has the proper idea of the romance which should attend a serenade. Of course, you didn’t know who was singing to you, and, of course, you just simply had to find out.”

“Don’t delude yourself with any such wild idea,” Jerry made haste to retort. “We knew Robin’s voice the minute she opened her mouth to sing ‘How Fair Art Thou.’ Now which one of us were you particularly referring to in that number? I took it straight to myself. Of course I may be a trifle presumptuous, Ahem!”

“Yes; ‘Ahem!’” mimicked Phyllis. “You are just the same good old, funny old scout, Jeremiah. Somebody please hold my violin while I embrace Jeremiah.”

“Hold it yourself,” laughed Portia. “We have fond welcomes of our own to hand around and need the use of our arms.”

Full of the happiness of the meeting the running treble of girlhood, mingled with ripples of gay, light laughter, was music in itself.

“The Moore Symphony Orchestra and Concert Company will have to be moving on,” Elaine reminded after fifteen minutes had winged away. “This is Phil’s organization but she seems to have forgotten all about it. We are supposed to serenade Barbara Severn, Isabel Keller and Miss Humphrey while the night is yet young. I can see where someone of the trio will have to be unserenaded this evening.”

“Couldn’t you serenade them tomorrow night?” coaxed Marjorie. “We had it all planned to go to Baretti’s before we hustled down to head you off. The instant I recognized Robin’s heavenly soprano I knew that the Silvertonites were under our windows. I guess the rest knew, too. We didn’t want to talk while you were singing.”

“Very polite in you, I am sure.” In the darkness Elaine essayed a profound bow. Result, her head came into smart contact with Blanche’s guitar.

“Steady there! I need my guitar for the next orchestral spasm.” Blanche swung the instrument under her arm out of harm’s way.

“I need my head, too,” giggled Elaine, ruefully rubbing that slightly injured member.

“Do serenade the others tomorrow night.” Ronny now added her plea. “How would you like to take us along with you, then? Not to sing, but just for company, you know. I never went out serenading, and I fully feel the need of excitement.”

“What you folks need is fresh peach ice cream and lots of it,” Jerry advised with crafty enthusiasm. “It’s to be had at Giuseppe Baretti’s.”

“I know of nothing more refreshing to tired soloists than fresh peach ice cream,” seconded Vera. “I leave it to my esteemed friend, Irish Leila, if I am not entirely correct in this.”

“You are. Now what is it that you are quite right about?” Leila had caught the last sentence and risen to the occasion.

“Such support,” murmured Vera, as a laugh arose.

“Is it not now?” Leila blandly commented. “Never worry. There is little I would not agree with you in, Midget. Be consoled with that handsome amend. As for you singers and wandering musicians, you had better come with us.

 
“We’ll feed you on fine white bread of the wheat
And the drip of honey gold:
We’ll give you pale clouds for a mantle sweet,
And a handful of stars to hold.”
 

Leila sang lightly the quaint words of an old Irish ditty.

“Can we resist such a prospect?” laughed Phyllis. “How about it, girls? Is it on with the serenade or on to Baretti’s?”

“Baretti’s it had better be, since we are invited there by such distinguished persons,” was Robin’s decision. “Leila, you are to teach me that song you were just humming. It is sweet!”

Her companions were nothing loath to abandon their project for the evening in order to hob-nob with their Wayland Hall friends. They came to this decision very summarily. Now fourteen strong, the company turned their steps toward their favorite restaurant.

They were nearing the cluster lights stationed at each side of the wide walk leading up to the entrance of the tea room, when Lucy Warner stopped short with: “Oh, girls; I know something that I think would be nice to do.”

“Speak up, respected Luciferous,” encouraged Vera. “You say so little it is a pleasure to listen to you. I wish I could say that of everyone I know,” she added significantly.

“Have you an idea of whom she may be talking about?” quizzed Leila, rolling her eyes at her companions.

“She certainly doesn’t mean us, even if she didn’t say ‘present company excepted.’” Muriel beamed at Leila with trustful innocence. “Go ahead, Luciferous Warniferous, noble Sanfordite, and tell us what’s on your mind.”

“I had no idea I was so greatly respected in this crowd. I never before saw signs of it. Much obliged. This is what I thought of.” Lucy came to the point with her usual celerity. “Why not serenade Signor Baretti? He is an Italian. The Italians all love music. I know he would like it. You girls sing and play so beautifully.”

“Of course he would.” Marjorie was the first to endorse Lucy’s proposal “This is really a fine time for it, too. It’s late enough in the evening so that there won’t be many persons in the restaurant.”

“It would delight his little, old Giuseppeship,” approved Blanche.

“No doubt about it,” Robin heartily concurred. “We ought to sing something from an Italian opera. That would please him most. The Latins don’t quite understand the beauty of our English and American songs.”

“We can sing the sextette from ‘Lucia,’” proposed Elaine. “It doesn’t matter about the words. We know the music. We have sung that together so many times we wouldn’t make a fizzle of it.”

“Yes, and there is the ‘Italian Song at Nightfall’ that Robin sings so wonderfully. We can help out on the last part of it.” Tucking her violin under her chin, Phyllis played a few bars of the selection she had named. “I can play it,” she nodded. “I never tried it on the fiddle before.”

“That’s two,” counted Robin. “For a third and last let’s give that pretty ‘Gondelier’s Love Song,’ by Nevin. It doesn’t matter about words to that, either. There aren’t any. People ought to learn to appreciate songs without words. Giuseppe won’t care a hang about anything but the music. If any of you Wayland Hallites decide to sing with us, sing nicely. Don’t you dare make the tiniest discord.”

“She has some opinion of herself as a singer,” Leila told the others, with comically raised brows. “Be easy. We have no wish to lilt wid yez.”

Having decided to serenade the unsuspecting proprietor of the tea room, the next point to be settled was where they should stand to sing.

“Wait a minute. I’ll go and look in one of the windows,” volunteered Ronny. “Perhaps I shall be able to see just where he is.”

“He is usually at his desk about this time in the evening. We’ll gather around the window nearest where he is sitting,” planned Phyllis.

Ronny flitted lightly ahead of her companions, stopping at a window on the right-hand side, well to the rear. The others followed her more slowly in order to give her time to make the observation. Before they reached her she turned from her post and came quickly to them.

“He is back at the last table on the left reading a newspaper. There isn’t a soul in the room but himself,” she said in an undertone. “The time couldn’t be more opportune.”

“Oh, fine,” whispered Robin. “We can go around behind the inn and be right at the window nearest him.”

“The non-singers, I suppose we might call ourselves the trailers, will politely station our magnificent selves at the next window above the singers to see how the victim takes it,” decided Jerry. “Contrary, ‘no.’ I don’t hear any opposing voices.”

“There mustn’t be any voices heard for the next two minutes,” warned Portia Graham. “Slide around the inn and take your places as quietly as mice.”

In gleeful silence the girls divided into two groups, each group taking up its separate station.

“I hope the night air hasn’t played havoc with my strings,” breathed Phyllis. “I don’t dare try them. Are we ready?” She rapped softly on the face of her violin with the bow.

Followed the tense instant that always precedes the performance of an orchestra, then Phyllis and Robin began the world-known sextette from “Lucia.” Robin had sung it so many times in private to the accompaniment of her cousin’s violin that the attack was perfect. The others took it up immediately, filling the night with echoing sweetness.

From their position at the next window the watchers saw the dark, solemn face of the Italian raised in bewildered amazement from his paper. Not quite comprehending at first the unbidden flood of music which met his ears, he listened for a moment in patent stupefaction. Soon a smile began to play about his tight little mouth. It widened into a grin of positive pleasure. Giuseppe understood that a great honor was being done him. He was not only being serenaded, but he was listening to the music of his native country as well.

His varying facial expressions, as the sextette rose and fell, showed his love of the selection. As it ended, he did an odd thing. He rose from his chair, bowed his profound thanks toward the window from whence came the singing, and sat down again, looking expectant.

“He knows very well he’s being watched,” whispered Marjorie. “Doesn’t he look pleased? I’m so glad you thought of him, Lucy.”

Lucy was also showing shy satisfaction at the success of her proposal. She was secretly more proud of some small triumph of the kind on her part than of her brilliancy as a student.

Had Signor Baretti been attending a performance of grand opera, he could not have shown a more evident pleasure in the programme. He listened to the entertainment so unexpectedly provided him with the rapt air of a true music-lover.

“There!” softly exclaimed Phyllis, as she lowered her violin. “That’s the end of the programme, Signor Baretti. Now for that fresh peach ice cream. I shall have coffee and mountain cake with it. I am as hungry as the average wandering minstrel.”

“Let’s walk in as calmly as though we had never thought of serenading Giuseppe,” said Robin. “Oh, we can’t. I forgot. The orchestra part of this aggregation is a dead give-away.”

“We don’t care. He will know it was we who were out there. There is no one else about but us. I hope he won’t think we are a set of little Tommy Tuckers singing for our suppers. That’s a horrible afterthought on my part,” Elaine laughed.

“Come on.” Jerry and her group had now joined the singers. “He saw us but not until you were singing that Nevin selection. He kept staring at the window where the sound came from. We had our faces right close to our window and all of a sudden he looked straight at us. You should have seen him laugh. His whole face broke into funny little smiles.”

“He may have thought we were the warblers,” suggested Muriel hopefully. “We can parade into the inn on your glory. If I put on airs he may take me for the high soprano.” She glanced teasingly at Robin.

“Oh, go as far as you like. It won’t be the first instance in the world’s history where some have done all the work and others have taken all the credit,” Robin reminded.

In this jesting frame of mind the entire party strolled around to the inn’s main entrance. At the door they found Giuseppe waiting for them, his dark features wreathed in smiles.

“I wait for you here,” he announced, with an eloquent gesture of the hand. “So I know som’ my friendly young ladies from the college sing just for me. You come in. You are my com’ny. You say what you like. I give the best. Not since I come this country I hear the singing I like so much. The Lucia! Ah, that is the one I lov’!

“I tell you the little story while you stan’ here. Then you come in. When I come this country, I am the very poor boy. Come in the steerage. No much to eat. I fin’ work. Then the times hard, I lose work. All over New York I walk, but don’t fin’. I have no one cent. I am put from the bed I rent. I can no pay. For four days I have the nothing eat. I say, ‘It is over.’ I am this, that I will walk to the river in the night an’ be no more.

“It is the very warm night and I am tired. I walk an’ walk.” His face took on a shade of his by-gone hopelessness as he continued. “Soon I come the river, I think. Then I hear the music. It is in the next street jus’ I go turn into. It is the harp an’ violin. Two my countrymen play the Lucia. I am so sad. I sit on a step an’ cry. Pretty soon one these ask the money gif’ for the music. He touch me on shoulder, say very kind in Italian, ‘Che c’è mai?’ That mean, ‘What the matter?’ He see I am the Italiano. We look each other. Both cry, then embrac’. He is my oldes’ brother. He come here long before me. My mother an’ I, we don’t hear five years. Then my mother die. Two my brothers work in the vigna for the rich vignaiuolo in my country. My father is dead long time. So I come here.

“My brother give me the eat, the clothes, the place sleep. He have good room. He work in the day for rich Italian importer. Sometimes he go out play at night for help his friend who play the harp. He is the old man an’ don’t work all the time. So it is I lov’ the Lucia. They don’t play that, mebbe I don’t sit on that step. Then never fin’ my brother. An’ you have please me more than for many years you play the Lucia for me this night.”