GIOVANNA’S ITALIAN RENAISSANCE

Mother of my Italian heart,—

Such wonderful bran news I got today for you and me to be glad about—the teacher spoke it right out to all the class of geography. She said that Dago is just the disrespeckfull for Italian and she names Italians grand and wonderful with songs in their throats and pictures in their eyes and hands to make statyous. And Mr. Columbus who discovered America was a Dago! So Americans needn’t feel set up over us because where would they be this minute if he never had? Besides they are all named after Mr. Amerigo, another Italian man who put them first on any map or they must have got omitted out of the geography and then think how mortifide they would have felt!

So Mother, it is not mean for me to be Dago and need not put shame on you as I always supposed it must indeed. It was my guess to myself you had hopes to erase all my Dago part in this school except my looks which are very brunetty and no powder can help that because I tried and it showed on top of my brownness like chalk on the blackboard and the Principal said “Giovanna, go wash your face; I did not believe you were that silly kind of girl.” So I cried and washed hard and threw away that powder box awful quick but explained not to the Principal because it would have been like telling a secret of yours and mine, Mother, to explain and I never did. Now you don’t need powder to stay on me any more.

O Mother, my proudness is up to the top of the highest mountain in the red atlas! I wish I could go and tell all the folks in our tenement that they are no more Ginneys but very grand and respecktable Italians and must have no shame on themselves for that but all glad and hawty.

I had thoughts of asking you to change my name to Jane but now I rejoyce to be

Your Italian daughter,

Giovanna.

Mother of my Dago heart,—

There was a reception in this school today very grand from three to five. O the surprise that happened on me right in the middle of this reception! If I gave you 1,000,000 guesses and 3 more you could not tell who came and not invited, for how could I think to invite rellytives never seen in my long life and most forgotten and also believed by me to stay in Italy shaped like a rubber boot and washed by many seas?

I was sitting some behind a screen and the music talked of you and my love as I never can write in my letters because it would take words I do not know. I wore my new pink silk which is that kind to try to stick to my fingers as if it says it likes to be my dress and the best beautiful sign of your love.

Dolly came and pulled me by the hand to the window quick as we could go for the many ladies not to step our feet on their elegant trains. There stayed Luigi on his wagon full of oranges and bananas. An Italian woman sat by him not his wife for I know her looks and a girl about my bigness. Down in front of the seat was a boy not so big and another girl not so big as the boy and another girl with curls not so big as that girl and a baby in the Italian woman’s lap which she gave Luigi to hold while she clum out and pulled down all the rest except the boy who jumped himself off and stufft two bananas in his shirt not seen by Luigi. Then Luigi pointed with his whip to the door of our school and drove away very quick like he still had scares on that teacher.

Wrinkeldy and poor was the Italian lady with a little square shawl on her head. The girl of my bigness was dressed pretty but curyous. Her black velvet corset was on top of her white waist. She wore a red skirt and an apron crost by many stripes. The toes of all the littler ones looked out of their shoes and no wraps on their thinness. I had a big sorry for them in my heart.

Then Dolly was called by her Mother to play a piece on the piano for some person in the music room.

Very soon that family off Luigi’s wagon stood in our hall and all stared at them like they were brickyards and not people. I had no dream who they could be, but Dago must ever go to Dago so I went.

When I walked close to her of the wrinkeldy face and little shawl, she screecht “Giovanna! Mia cara! Mia cara!” and hugged me long long in her arms and many times kissed my cheeks and hugged me more and more and tears ran down in her wrinkles.

I let her hug and kiss me, Mother, but I shook and shook and wished not to be so much kissed with all to stare and stare as they done. Nobody hugs like that in receptions which are not any good form place for jenuine feelings like hers but just touch your fingers and talk politeness. The feelings that Italian lady had on me were terrible and I could not understand what for with this the first time I ever walked in her sight.

By and by she calmed off a teeny bit and held my face with her hands and looked and looked and said she was my Aunt Maddalena.

I was embearest dreadful and sorry to make her such dizzypoint but I begged her please excuse me not to be her niece and her not to be my Aunt Maddalena.

The girl of my bigness had eyes black and looks proud like anything. She spoke American but slow and funny and full of try as if her tongue could just walk and not run.

“Why notta your Aunt?”

I answered “It is the true that my Mama who died had a sister named Maddalena and she usto tell me how they cried and hugged much when my Mama started for America in the big ship, but this lady never can be my Aunt.”

That girl asked again, “Why notta your Aunt?”

I explained just like my Mama that died usto tell me plenty of times. “My Aunt Maddalena is so beautiful in looks that artiss men make her picture with many paints. Nobody in her village can dance the tarantella like my Aunt Maddalena; any person will travel a mile and be glad to see the steps of her teeny feet. She wrote a letter how she marrys my Uncle Nicolo who sings long songs and walks on the grapes to make them wine. By and by she wrote another letter that she has a baby girl, cousin to me named Concetta. Then no more letters or else lost. Now you understand why this Italian lady is all mistake and no Aunt.”

That girl spoke again awful proud.

“Little fool! Can she no getta old? When young she was moddle for artiss men and this dress I wear now is her moddle dress because my dress gotta the holes. Your Uncle Nicolo no come today, he hunts the work. You think that baby girl Concetta no getta big never? I am Concetta and this is your Aunt Maddalena.”

Then I believed she spoke the true and I was more embearest like I would die with all my thinks tip side up and no chance to get them fixed. My voice came out of me little and funny.

“I am very pleased to meet you.”

“Notta so!” said Concetta awfuller proud. “You no wanta us! One year in America we look look ask ask for you. Now I wish we never hadda found you! You gotta the shame of us and I hate you!”

I did not answer that Concetta but I led them to chairs which were very quick plenty when they walked near. It is the rule not to just have your own talk with your rellytives at a reception but you must make presents to them of your schoolmates. I did not mind that rule, Mother because of the feelings I had for the Exclusives to look on my cousins so wretcheddy and my Aunt Maddalena all poor and wrinkled up. I was trying to swallow down my cry when our dear Principal came and saylooted my rellytives fine and polite as if they were the best in elegant trains instead of short in the skirts and big in the shoes as my Aunt, only Concetta hid her hands under her apron crost by many stripes. What sort of manners was that?

The boy begged me, “Swipe a feller some cake. Say, do you guys have ice cream?” I made the start to get him some but Concetta said, “Notta swipe—better he starve first,” so I sat still and swiped not.

I wanted to make good from talk with my rellytives but it was skarce in me. Pretty soon Concetta said to her Mother in Italian that no longer must they put shame on Giovanna with her grand friends so they went and fine riddants to that Concetta.

O Mother, what is the good to call Italians grand and wonderful and then all to stare at them like brickybacks when they stand in your hall? How can they have that glad the teacher says they may for the songs in their throats and the pictures in their eyes and their hands to make statyous when they got those scroochtdown Dago feelings on themselves (not counting Concetta) and you got the same on them to be their rellytives? My Italian proudness is all spoiled.

Your unhappy Jane.

Dearest and Best,—

I am writing to you in my cloak and my hat is still on my head because my feelings fizzed and fizzed all the way home from the call on my Italian rellytives and will not stay shut up in me one more minute.

All days I felt as if there was a string on my soul and Aunt Maddalena was pulling it and I knew Dago must go to Dago. The Principal said a teacher might company me this afternoon which she so done.

O Mother, rellytives are no good but to make grief and woe! I wish mine were back in Italy like a rubber boot washed by many seas, I do indeed. No, I would save out Aunt Maddalena because love is sprouting in my heart for her and how she does not look all homely as at first. And the baby with eyes like chockylet creams, it is a dear baby. Giuseppe is a newsy and newsys are ever desprit characters and usto pull my braids, but Giuseppe has not done it yet and he has a hello grin on him so you got to like him anyway and I do not wish away my cousin Giuseppe. Marietta next to Giuseppe is very good and quiet and pityful to be so thin and pale and nobody could wish her away. Assunta between Marietta and the baby has long black curls and dimples, and I ached to hug and hug her but I never could for the eyes of Concetta kept me all friz up on my bench so I sat still and hugged not.

Aunt Maddalena would have embrased me the same as at the reception but Concetta had to put in her Italian talk “Have care, little Mother, for the fine clothes of our grand lady cousin.”

All the time of this visit I felt as if my heart was a pincushion and every word of Cousin Concetta stuck another pin in that cushion for the hate she got against me. She asked me in her own talk why I brought that teacher to show her how poor they live. Was it not enought for me to know it myself and come where I was wanted by nobody?

They are terrible poor, Mother, and live way upstairs in the back tennyment with no window to look on the street but just at clothes-lines and for furniture some big and little benches such as my Uncle could make with boards loose from the back fence if he got them first and not the neighbors to burn and a little old busted stove and a bed very ricketty and the plaster to fall off in many spots.

They must take coats home to finish just for some cents each one. Aunt Maddalena sewed like crazy and Concetta the same hard and fierce and Marietta pale and pityful must sew and little Assunta pulled the bastings and minded the baby. She cried to go sit on the doorstep and Aunt Maddalena shook her, not for mad but because tears would drop on that coat of fine cloth and ruin them all.

Uncle Nicolo is a man of ditches in America because we walk not on our grapes to make them wine, and when he cannot get ditches to dig he is out of work which is dreadful and all must finish more coats. He walked in at the door and I saw him for the first time ever. He bowed polite to the teacher and me and shook our hands. He did not laugh nor sing long songs nor take his piccolo out of his pocket as my Mama that died said he had those habbits but sat on a bench with his head to hang down in front and his hands to fall between his knees.

The teacher spoke with him very friendly and he told her O if he had fifty $ to buy a fruitstand of an Italian man who must take his poor sick wife back to Italy to die in the arms of her old Mother, then the family could live fine and not finish the coats. After telling this Uncle Nicolo fell back into his sorry thinks and talked no more.

Giuseppe was gone to sell his papers, the teacher could not speak all the time about nothing, Aunt Maddalena in English can only smile and smile, the little girls were too bashful and the baby too young and Uncle Nicolo too sad and Concetta too mean to talk so nobody did.

By and by Aunt Maddalena begged me to tell of my Mama that died and all our family, but I have lost the habbit to speak Italian and was afraid to say it funny and full of mistakes for Cousin Concetta to laugh so I answered “Aunt I cannot.”

Then Concetta went and made this lie, “Little Mother, our grand lady cousin has forgot she was ever poor like us. Do not make her the pain to remember.”

O Mother, that was mean and mean and mean! I hated Concetta to say that lie of me, so I begged the teacher please let us go and we went.

I will never go back to see them any more—I’m all finished up with them forever and forever world without hen!

Goodbye Aunt Maddalena, dear Aunt no more ugly but good and sweet. Goodbye Giuseppe of the hello grin. Goodbye poor little Marietta so pityful. Goodbye Assunta with the Isabella looks and curls. Goodbye baby of the big eyes like chockylet creams. Goodbye Uncle Nicolo. I hope you get plenty of ditches to dig and can buy that fruit stand. I do indeed. Goodbye Cousin Concetta with your manners like snow to freeze me and your words like mustard to burn me.

Mother darling, I feel some unfizzed and I just have time to put away my hat and coat before the supper bell.

Goodbye from Jane.

Dear Mother,

Your letter hurt fierce and awful but I guess it’s what the Principal calls a merryted reebuke. You say you have no daughter Jane and want none of that name if my last letters are her kind to write. You tell the great dizzypoint you got in me to be so snubbish and your surprise that I can so quick forget the feelings I usto have in my soul when the Exclusives were hawty with me the same. O how you put big big Selfish on me to fuss all times at my own mortifide and not considder the mortifide of my rellytives at the reception to find themselves such differents. In the call also you feel Scorn for me as a horrid silly Prig not to talk Italian with my dear Aunt. And my Mama that died—how dreadful she must have felt to lean over in her Heavenly seat and see me act like that to her used-to-be-beautiful sister and I guess God has His oppinion of me too.

The repentants I got on all the family is big as a house but it don’t reach to my Cousin Concetta—no ma’am it don’t! Her I must ever hate as she does me and she made its start when I never did. Last night I had trouble with my prayers all on account of her. This morning when I woke I felt as if I had caught meazles in my soul for my thinks of her.

Yes, ma’am, I will go spend the whole Saturday to visit those rellytives I thought never to see again in my long life but Dago must go to Dago and that’s the true. Yes, ma’am, I will help finish the coats. Yes, Mother, to please you, I will love that Cousin of my bommynation just this Saturday, since you say that on Sunday I have your permission to hate her again if I can’t help it.

This is your first time to scold me, Mother, and it felt like spanks on my soul, but O you put such love and forgiveness at the end and now to be all confessed and promised up, why I feel more daughterish than ever.

Your never-more Jane But always Giovanna.

Mother of my happy love,—

On Saturday morning the Principal was to shop herself a new dress but she took me first to the house of my Aunt. They were terribly busy. This time the coats belonged to boys and all must sew sew like crazy to get finished that day for the rent. Poor little Marietta most fell off her bench with sleepy because all had sewed in the night. Giuseppe was gone to sell his papers and Uncle Nicolo to hunt his ditch to dig with little hope for ditches are scarce and many beg for shovels.

I said “Concetta, today I love you, give me a coat to sew.” She tost her head and mocked me back. “Very kind the grand lady Giovanna to love her poor cousin and sew a coat, very very kind! I thank you.” I did not get any mad but I just thought how mad I would be tomorrow for her to speak that way. I took a coat to finish off the pile but I sewed clear through and the stitches showed and Concetta must stop and pull them out. She said awful cross “Thank you, fine lady Giovanna, for the splendid help which will put us back three coats to get over. Why don’t you stay with your grand friends and let us be?”

I was much mortifide but not mad today or tomorrow because I had a big sorry on myself to put them back three coats by my fault.

When it was dinner time Concetta said “We have only polenta because this is the day of the rent. I fear our grand Cousin will starve.”

I answered “My Mama that died usto talk of polenta how good, so polenta is all right with me.” We had no tablecloth, just a big dish of polenta which is corn pudding made out of mutton. Giuseppe came and saylooted me with his hello grin but no words. O Mother, when I tasted that polenta I thought what will I do what will I do not to offend more Concetta because so fierce I did not like it that scarcely could my swallow act and besides there was not plenty for all. In that minute Giuseppe winkt his eye on my side and I slipt my share to him under the table which he ate with much joy and me the same that he should.

Very quick was finished the polenta because it was not much and all must hurry hurry to finish more coats. I begged very humble to try again and Concetta let me most scornful but I finished one all right and felt proud but there was no time for proudness, just grab another and another. At first it was like play to try to get through quick as the rest which I could not for even Marietta would beat me by both sleeves. I liked to wonder what was the color of hair now growing on the boy whose Papa would buy him this coat but soon no more because I got a little ache in my back which spread and spread and my arms ached fierce and my feet got asleep and my neck full of cricks. The black color would come off on my hands to make them horrid and ugly. I was hungry like I would starve and all my bones were full of pains but I had shame to stop first, so it was grab another and another till it seemed as if I had to sew down a long long road with no end but just coats and coats until I died.

O Mother, all at once I lost my Giovanna feelings and caught Concetta feelings instead. It was as if I was not me but her all poor and tired and ever sewing and hungry and sleepy and anksyus. I could see me, Giovanna, sitting there in the good clothes of your love clean and fed up and lazy and smarty and selfish and crittykle. O Mother, I hated me and not her so fierce that I cried to think how mean I was and all times putting it on her.

Concetta got big astonish to see my cry, but said real sweet as I never knew she could “Notta more sew—you tired, no? You stop now.”

Then I tried to explain and we all stopped and hugged and Concetta embraced me most of all and said I was not proud and hawty like she thought and for me to forgive and I hugged back most crazy with glad.

Uncle Nicolo came in and Concetta begged him to play the piccolo so they might dance to sellybrate. It is a fine father who can always have music in his pocket that his children may dance. I told Uncle Nicolo how my Mama that died said the neighbors called him Mr. Piccolo instead and he laughed a little for the first time in America I guess by his looks.

Isn’t it funny that my feet have not forgot the tarantella learned from my Mama that died while my head forgets many capitals of States in vacation? So Concetta and I were fine in love and danced it to each other like our Mothers usto, only Uncle Nicolo would have his sad thoughts again and forget to blow.

The Principal stood in the door and Dolly with her because Dolly had met her in a store and wanted to come. They begged and begged and coaxed and coaxed until Aunt Maddalena took her little shoes out of a chest and nobody could dance the tarantella like her. She looked old but danced young just as when all would walk miles to see the steps of her teeny feet.

O Mother, what do you think our dear Principal said—that her grand wonderful actress friend who visited us once at the school wants to learn the tarantella because she must dance it in a play named “Ibsen’s doll’s house” and nobody could teach her to do it like my Aunt Maddalena and the actress lady will pay Aunt Maddalena plenty of money to be taught. In that minute I got back my Italian proudness to think of that way-way-up-to-the-sky actress lady taking lessons off my Aunt.

O and Uncle Nicolo can buy that fruit stand and he was so glad he sang a long song which the Principal named grand opera. All the time he sang Dolly was scribbling with her pencil on the cuffs of my white waist but not so anybody would notice her much and then she whispered to me “Don’t send my limmyricks to the laundry.”

Next Uncle Nicolo played like he would break his cheeks and we all danced. Even the Principal made some whirls with Marietta.

We parted in joy and now I am home back at the school and happy happy! And I have looked in Dolly’s closet but I can’t find any limmyricks not to send to the laundry. I know all her clothes and she never said she wore any or what color.

Here is the poetry off my left cuff.

Here is her poetry on my right cuff.

That’s the true just as if it wasn’t poetry, but all the rellytives in this big world dont = one precious darling Mother always first in the heart of

Giovanna.