The men, women and children work in the fields, vineyards and orchards, transport products to market on mule-back, in donkey carts or on platform carts drawn by great white or gray, long-horned oxen. A team of the latter is a beautiful sight. The women not in the fields, in addition to household work, carry heavy jars of water on their heads; wash clothes in the public _lavacro_; pick grapes, olives, fruits, almonds, walnuts; cut, mangle and clean hemp; gather, flail out, and clean peas, beans, etc.; and bear children. The duty of maternity is the first thought of the Italian woman. Fecundity is the prime marital virtue and her principal hold on her husband’s esteem. There are many labors which are shared by men, women and children, such as herding the goats, treading the grapes in the winepress, vegetable-gathering and attending to the irrigation. This latter is very important. The loads which men and women can carry on their heads are huge. I have seen a man coming in at the finish of a five-mile trot with 120 pounds of grapes on his head, and all the way he has maintained a gait very similar to that of a dog. Very early in life the children are taught to carry loads on their heads. The morning of the second day, people began to come to us for advice and information. There were two or three old men in Gualtieri,—old beyond the ability for anything but very light labor. They wanted to send their sons to America that the boys might get a foothold and then bring them. They all asked me what was the best work for a young man to do in my country. All were farmers living in the village, who went out each day to work the little patches of ground they called farms. [Illustration: Part of the Family Gathered in the Kitchen (_From left to right: Ina, Tono, Giovanina, Antonio, Mrs. Squadrito, Giovanni, Jr., Nicola, Maria_)—Felicia Pulejo—Concetta]