By chance I discovered that Beltrando Brini was living in Wollaston, a twenty-minute drive from my home in Wellesley. When a boy of thirteen, Brini had testified at Vanzetti’s first trial that the two of them had been delivering eels in Plymouth the day before Christmas, 1919—the day Vanzetti was to be found guilty of attempting a holdup in Bridgewater. As he grew up, Brini had broken away from the Italian community. He had graduated from Boston University and was now an elementary school principal. Community affairs seemed to take up most of his spare time. Two weeks passed before he could find a free evening to see me. I found his house easily enough, a decent inconspicuous house in a decent inconspicuous street. He was a small man in his fifties. Like many of the second generation he still looked Italian, but to a diminished degree. He showed me into his living room. His wife was standing near the fireplace, a thin fair-haired woman, not Latin at all. After he had introduced me to her we sat down, taking each other’s measure while she went into the kitchen to make coffee. “You know,” he said finally, “I could have been a musician. I really could at one time have gotten into the Boston Symphony Orchestra. But I thought it was safer to be a teacher. That’s why I never seem to be home nights—always something they want a school principal to be doing, somewhere they want him to be.” He looked at me sharply. “You want to know about Vanzetti. He lived with us a long time. He paid more attention to me than my parents did. He was kind to all children. I remember one Halloween we all had jack-o’-lanterns. The others had theirs lighted but mine didn’t have a candle in it. Vanzetti came along and asked me why I didn’t get a candle. I said I hadn’t any money. He asked me how much candles cost and I said two cents, so he fished in his pocket and gave them to me. When I got to the hardware store I found he’d given me a cent and a dime. So I got my candle and I brought him back the nine cents. I’d never had that much money in my pocket before, but I remember how proud of myself I was that I brought that nine cents back to him. “I remember the last time I saw him before his arrest. It’s a thing I somehow still feel ashamed about. A bunch of us were playing ball in Suosso’s Lane and somebody hit one over the fence into a garden. While I was climbing over to get it I trampled on some vegetables and the man who owned the garden came out and started to bawl me out. I answered him back, like any fresh kid. Then Vanzetti came along, took me over by the fence, and talked to me. He wasn’t angry, he didn’t raise his voice, but what he said made me feel ashamed. I didn’t feel like playing ball any more. I’ve often wished it hadn’t been that way, the last time I saw him free.