American Emigrants From Isle of Capri

Nook version of vintage magazine article originally published in 1908. Contains lots of great info and illustrations seldom seen in the last 100 years.

Read excerpt -

"Ah, Signora, yes! Men are all in America. In this village there are twenty fine girls, with arms strong for the work, yet of what good is it all? The few men who remain in the village ask forty, even eighty dollars before they will marry. Eighty dollars! Can a girl earning twenty cents a day save such a fortune? Pray to the Madonna of the Rock, says my mother. Talking is easy. Of what use are prayers when you have not a penny to pay for a candle? I have twenty-four years, since the third of last May. If my lottery ticket wins not a prize I must stay single."

Giuseppina, the sister of Antonio, my coachman, was one of the fortunate. She had always worked in the village bakery, lifting, turning, and kneading the great clods of dough. Her face had lined, her figure stooped, still she had worked on, good, patient, uncomplaining, the drudge of the family. In a night all was changed. Cinderella of yore was not more bewildered by the suddenness of her fortune than Giuseppina when the numbers on her lottery ticket, carefully chosen from the Book of Dreams, won the first prize of two thousand lire ($400). The news spread through the country, and for miles around men sought the hand of the heiress. But Giuseppina had her prince. On Pasquale, lame, poor, despised, who daily carried her fresh loaves to the hotel on the cliff; on Pasquale the maternal longings of her hungry heart had centered. When the next steamer sailed for America, Pasquale, with two thousand lire carefully con-cealed in one of Giuseppina's long stock¬ings, sailed also. The village, first out¬raged, then amused, laughed roundly when Giuseppina, placid, contented, returned to her baking. But Giuseppina smiled quietly. Two years passed; then Pasquale, successful proprietor of "The Manhattan Italian Bakery," returned to the village. Giuseppina, arrayed in a new gown of black shiny silk, went proudly to the padre, and brother Antonio himself drove the smiling pair to the nearest railway station. The banco at the corner of the piazza doubled its business.

But the lottery ticket is not the only solace for the heirs of the emigrant. Letters from America break the monot¬ony of the long, dull months. In the village wine-shop a professional letter-writer will, for a few cents, send word of the home ones to those beyond the great sea. He will read, too, the mysterious envelope which the old carrier brings in his bag up the steep mountain path. Wondrous strange are the tales which the brown bag carries, tales told over and over in the little stone homes, tales not to be credited, did not the padre indorse them. "It is a land," writes Pasquale, "where all wear shoes, a land where trains shoot through the air, and trains shoot through the ground. Even the poor ride. No one needs an um¬brella, for cars pass everywhere."

And then there are homecomings to which to look forward.