Why should he press his suit? He would wait and see more of her. And then the crisis came that hurled him headlong into a decision. CHAPTER XIII The idea that her child might attain the highest honor within the reach of any man on earth had stirred Angela to the depths and given new meaning and dignity to life. She lifted her head. She had borne a child whose word might bend a million wills to his. The world was a bigger, nobler place in which to live. She was stirred with sudden purpose to leave no stone unturned to bring this dream to pass. She bought books of the lives of the presidents. Twice she read the life of Abraham Lincoln, the humble backwoodsman rail-splitter who became president. But her vivid Italian imagination loved the stories of George Washington, the first president, best. He was nearest in history to Columbus, the Italian who discovered America. She read the legends of little George Washington’s adventures and began to play the mighty drama of her own son’s career by guiding his feet in the same path. She had laughed immoderately over George cutting his father’s cherry-tree. She was sure her bambino was capable of that! If George cut cherry-trees, of course his father had cherries to eat. She got at once a lot of cherries and fed them to the boy, laughing and nursing her dream. She found a picture of Washington in his Colonial dress. The style pleased her fancy. She went forthwith, bought the material and made her boy a suit with cockade hat exactly like it. Tommaso was amazed on entering the living-room from the fruit store to find the kid arrayed in the strange garb. Angela was stuffing some cotton under the cockade hat to make it fit, studying the picture to be sure of the effect. When she explained, Tommaso joined in the play with equal zest. When the boy had exhausted the admiration of his father and mother he sallied forth into the street to meet his little friends and show his clothes. He had scarcely cleared the door when “Sausage” emerged from the Schultz delicatessen store and the two met halfway. No hard feelings had lingered from their fight in the old Armory. Sausage’s admiration was boundless. He had just persuaded little Tommaso to go home and show them to his own mother when they turned and saw Meyer unloading a truck filled with curious looking long boxes. They ran up to investigate just as a case fell and a gun dropped to the pavement. The kids rushed to Benda’s to tell Angela and Tommaso. “I told you that man was no good!” Angela exclaimed. “Go--and see quick and we tell Vasa’--” Tommaso hurried across the street and found Meyer standing over the broken case. Meyer faced the Italian without ceremony: “Cost your life to open your yap about these guns--see?” Tommaso snapped his finger in the other’s face: “Go t’ell!” He turned on his heel to go, saw his wife and the children near, rushed back and snapped his finger again in Meyer’s face: “Go t’ell two times--see--two times!”