Something else equally ill-advised was the making of huge trunks by Nicola Squadrito and others, in which the families of the departing ones packed quantities of every conceivable sort of supply, just as if the voyagers were going to a new, wild land to begin life as best they could. Despite the protestations of Antonio, my wife and myself, Camela, crammed into huge boxes two sets of heavy mattresses with all the accompanying bedding; large cans of _pomidoro_; olive oil; sticks on which dried figs were impaled; flasks of wine; forms of cheese; old clothes; and cooking-utensils, many of which were new; and Concetta Fomica’s mother repeated the performance. Enough excess baggage, freight and customs duty were paid, before we were through, on these big encumbrances to replace the whole lot twice over in America. The last days were at hand. We were to leave on Tuesday before dawn. On Saturday afternoon a request came from an old woman up the valley that we see her—she being unable to come to us—before we departed. As we followed the stony _torrente_ path to her home, her story was told to us. Twenty-three years ago, when she was a bride of little more than a year and a mother but a month, her husband had gone to America, the first man to emigrate from all that region, nearly eighteen years before Antonio Squadrito and the others had started the flood. She had received one letter in which he said he had changed his name to Frank Smith, as nobody had any patience with his Italian name. She never heard from him after that, and after her one boy died she continued to live alone in the little house Francesco had built for her and waited for Francesco’s return. For a living she worked in the fields in summer, and in the early autumn in the vineyards and the lemon, olive, and orange orchards. We found her spinning with the old distaff in the sunshine before her door. She set before us such humble hospitality as her hut afforded, and then told us she wanted us to begin a search in America for a Frank Smith, and she desired to turn over her savings, thirty-two lire ($6), to defray the expenses. She could not understand why we would not take it. It may be that these lines will fall beneath the eye of a man who long since left all his Italianism behind him and is now a thoroughgoing American and no longer Francesco. If so, I bid him remember that there is a faithful woman waiting for him in the Sicilian hills. CHAPTER IX THE DEPARTURE