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Show fSh Bell JorkAmB &23fi&h John Herseu fTzd fv THUS FAR! The Amerl-IB Amerl-IB SI0.rrlTC,i at Adano, a acaport t .(J. Mjr v,cur Jol,po.lo, th ,U T'fflr in enarsc. Servant Leon-unl Leon-unl ol"c" M P , waa to be In charce tm MJr ,ct out lmmcd- '""" in the friendship of the cltl-U7L cltl-U7L improve their llvlnB condl- m. orst d"Ues 01 tte M"Jr' Hurt- T civll Instructions, was to posUnS citizens needed the lid " ,oon determined to replace n which the Germans had taken. J.PP010 found that the bell was rv Tmbol ol their private and 1 lie ln Adano. He determined to 6 .bell saUsfactory to the people. tom here. Once the Important peo- I pie make us kiss their hands, and later when the actual kissing became be-came too much of a bother, It became be-came the habit merely to mention the kissing, as if it had been done." Craxi said: "I meant no offense, Mister Major. I am anti-Fascist." Major Joppolo said: "It appears that everyone In this town is anti-Fascist. anti-Fascist. Well, we will see about the bell. Now I wish to speak alone with the priest. Zito, you may stay. You are my usher. Giuseppe, you I may stay. You are my interpreter." Craxi said: "Mister Major, the tol Building, Washington, D. C. Fre-mente Fre-mente di gioia per la liberta da mol-to mol-to tempo attesa che 1 vostri valorosl soldati anno dato alia citta d' Adano stop vi prego accettare i sentimenti sinceri della mia gratitudine e ri-conoscenza. ri-conoscenza. Antifascista Giovanni La Concetta fu Craxi."' "Giuseppe," the Major sala, "let's see how good you are as an Interpreter. Inter-preter. Now, this is for President Roosevelt. You must make it as eloquent as you can. What does it say?" "To Franklin" D. Roosevelt and a so forth," said Giuseppe. "Crazy with joy because of a liberty so long time awaited which your brave a soldier have a give to a town of Adano. What's a stop?" "That's just the end of a sentence, sen-tence, Giuseppe." "End a sentence. I beg a you accept a sincere sentiments of my gratitude and a recognition. Signed a this Craxi. You going to deliver it, a boss?" CHAPTER HI Crarf said: "I needed no bell. I nn the beach to welcome the " San. My woman was with tefoableMargherita.and " 'seven children. We were on the ? l in spite of the shooting, to bM , fte Americans. But what did F chMren shout? They did not WJ,t Re miss the tinkling of the ffrney shouted: Caramellel Caramelle!' They were hungry. S " wanted candy. I myself, who Sd had enough to eat as it happens, Routed for cigarettes, not for the pealing of a bell." Borth and the usher Zito came baci Borth said: "It's nifty. Mate Ma-te All the records are intact. They ell' everything. There are lists of L-Fascists and lists of those who were enthusiastic and the others wbo were lukewarm. There's a dos-lier dos-lier on each important person. It u perfect. Who are these guys?" Cacopardo said: "Cacopardo is wmir sprvice. sir. Ca- telegram." ' J Major Joppolo said: "I will try to send it." Craxi mentioned the kissing again, and turned to go. When the others had gone, Major ' Joppolo said to Father Pensovec-chio: Pensovec-chio: "Father, I wish to tell you that 1 the Americans want to bring only ! good to this town. As in every na- 1 tion, there are some bad men in ' America. It is possible that some Americans who come here will do ' bad things. If they do, I can assure as-sure you that most of the Americans Ameri-cans will be just as ashamed of those things as you are annoyed by them." Father Pensovecchio said: "I think we will understand weakness in your men just as we try to understand under-stand it in our own." Major Joppolo said: "Thank you. Father, I have been told that you are the best priest in Adano." The priest said with quite honest modesty: "I am here to do my duty." Major Joppolo said: "Therefore I should like to ask a favor of you. "Sure," the Major said, "the President Pres-ident will be glad to hear." Mercurio Salvatore, crier of the town of Adano, took a little time to show up, because he had to get into his uniform. His face was happy when he did arrive, because he had thought that his crying days were over. Having been a voice of Fascism Fas-cism for seventeen years, he thought that the newcomers would not want his loud shouts. He had taken his uniform off and hidden it in the house Of Carmelina the wife of Fat-ta. Fat-ta. He had then awkwardly paraded pa-raded himself in civilian clothes and the people, having seen him in uni- lorm lor seventeen years, laugueu at him. . "Where is the crier?" they asked each other in his presence. "He has disappeared into the clothes of Fatta which do not fit him," they shouted, and laughed. Therefore Mercurio Salvatore was happy and grateful when he presented pre-sented himself to Major Joppolo. "I am glad to be able to serve you and I kiss your hand," he said in his husky voice. Indoors he had learned to speak in a kind of whisper, because be-cause he knew the strength of his throat If Major Joppolo had been any other American officer, he would my name, ' j- . copardo is sulphur and sulphur is Cacopardo." , Borth said: I remember that name. In the records it says Caco-pardo's Caco-pardo's crazy." Craxi said: "That is true. He thinks that bells are more important impor-tant than food." Borth turned on Craxi in mock nger. "And who is this?" Craxi was apologetic again: "I am anti-Fascist. Craxi. I believe in food for the moment." Major Joppolo said: "They are arguing which is more Important, food or restoring the bell. Since we obviously can't do anything about the bell just now, food is our concern." con-cern." Craxi looked very proud of himself, him-self, but Cacopardo turned to Zito and said: "We will leave Jhis matter mat-ter to the son of Rosa who was the wife of Zito. What do you. say, small Zito, do you consider the food or the bell more important?" Surprisingly Zito said: "I think 1 the bell." -' - -' Major Joppolo was interested by this. He leaned forward and said: "Why, Zito?" I Zito said: "Because the tone of the bell was so satisfactory." ' "No," said Cacopardo, "it is because be-cause of the history of the bell. When the bell spoke, our fathers and their fathers far back spoke to us." Even Craxi was swept into this argument. "No," he said, "it was because the bell rang the times of day. It told us when to do things, , such as eating. It told us when to have the morning egg and when to have pasta and rabbit and when to drink wine in the evening." Zito said: "I think it was the tone which mattered. It soothed all the people of this town. It chided those ...I li. tka im. have laughed outright at Mercurio Salvatore. He said: "Crier, I have a job for you. I must explain this to you: the Americans are different from the Fascists. They are different in many ways. For this reason there will be quite a few changes in Ada-no. Ada-no. I hope that they will be changes for the better." Mercurio Salvatore said: "Yes, Mister Major," to show that he would remember every word of it. The Major said: "In order to explain ex-plain some of these changes, I am going to post at various prominent places around the town, a number of proclamations, which will make everything ev-erything clear. All I want you to do is to tell the people to read these proclamations. Impress on them that the penalties for not obeying the proclamations will be severe. That is all." Mercurio Salvatore looked disappointed. disap-pointed. "That is not much to shout," he said. Major Joppolo said: "Shall I name a new crier?" Mercurio Salvatore said quickly: "Oh no, Mister Major, I will make something beautiful of what you Blood and wind rushed into his throat and his throat roared. You must feel perfectly free to refuse re-fuse me if you wish. I should like to ask you to say a few words before be-fore your mass tomorrow morning happy ones, it even laughed with those who were drunk. It was a tone lor everybody." Giuseppe came in bringing the priest. Father Pensovecchio was gray-haired and cheerful, and as he approached the group around the Major's desk he made a motion with his right hand which might have been interpreted either as a blessing bless-ing or as a Fascist salute. After the introductions, Major Joppolo said to the priest: "Father, we are speaking of the old bell which was taken away." Father Pensovecchio said: "That Is the disgrace of this town. I have In my church a bell which is just as loud as the one which was taken way, though not so sweet and much younger and altogether meaningless s a bell. Any other bell would have done as well in my belfry. I wanted to send my bell. But the Monsignor would not permit it. The Monsignor is the uncle of the Mayor. He has reasons for doing the things he does " Father Pensovecchio trossed himself, indicating that the things which the Monsignor did were jomewhat ugly; "but in this case about the Americans, i snan v it to you to say what you wish, if you will merely add that there are certain proclamations which the Americans have posted which ought to be read." Father Pensovecchio said: mat I can easily do." ' Major Joppolo said: "I myself am a Catholic. If you will have me, I should like to attend your mass.' , The priest said: "It will be a pleasure to have you." Major Joppolo Jop-polo was glad that he did not say it would be an honor. Major Joppolo said: "I shall see you tomorrow then." Father Pensovecchio said, just lo make sure: "At the Church of San Angelo. It is by the Piazza of that name. At seven in the morning. Until then, son." When the priest had left, Giuseppe said in his brand of English: "You doing okay, a boss. All you got a do now is fix a food " "Yes " said Major Joppolo, food. We'll go to the bakeries. But first, do you have a crier here?" Giuseppe said to Zito in Italian "What is the name of the crier? " . h hil s with the have said." I Major Joppolo said: "The proclamations procla-mations will be posted before five o'clock this afternoon." Mercurio Salvatore said: "Yes, Mister Major," and left. , He picked up his drum where he had left it outside the Major's office. Ordinarily he had made his first cry in the Piazza Progresso, right in front of the Palazzo, but this time he was self-conscious, and wanted to have a few tries before crying within earshot of the Major. Therefore There-fore he went first to the park opposite oppo-site the Cathedral. He rolled his drum long and sharply. He took a deep breath. Blood and wind rushed Into his throat, and his throat roared: "Well, you laughed. But you can see that Mercurio Sal-vatore Sal-vatore is still your crier. The Americans Amer-icans are friends of Mercurio Salvatore Sal-vatore The Americans wish to be your friends, too. You have been expecting the Americans for some time but did you expect the changes which would come after the Ameri-cans' Ameri-cans' Did you know that they were going to change many things after Siey came? Did you know that they I believe he was wrong." 1 Borth said: "It's ridiculous. There are lots of things more important than this bell. Get them some food and don't forget that alleyway." Major Joppolo said: "All the same, the bell is important to them." And he said then in Italian: "Thank you for telling me about the bell. I promise you that I will do all I can to get another bell . Which will have some meaning as a hell and will have a good tone nd its history will be that it was liven to you by the Americans to take the place of the one which was taken awxy hy the Fascists to make tun barrels." Cacopardo said: "You are kind." Craxi said: "I thank you, Mister Major, and I kiss your hand." Major Joppolo said: "You what?" Cacopardo the historian said: "He eant no offense. It is an old cus- Did ne run 0tZUo?s'aid: "No. he is here. Mer-curio Mer-curio Salvatore. He here. Only, Mister Major, he does not a ways fay exactly what you tell him to ,av He will say the general mean-tag mean-tag of what you wish, but he wOl change it some. Even if you write U down, he wiU change it some." " MaP Joppolo said: "Will you get him please, Zito? I want to send him out to teU the people to read the PrZito went.nSMajor Joppolo said to Giuseppe: "We will go to the bak-eries! bak-eries! tU we will post the procla- "Giuseppe said: "Okay, a boss." Ma'or JoPPolo looked down at hrs desk and saw Craxi's telegram He unlid the safety pin and unfolded PoaPFerUkfinrDdRoosevelt, Capi- were going vo "6 r ""7 n everything except the crier? WeU, your crier is here to tell you this Now Mercurio Salvatore filled his lungs and bellowed: "Opposite me I see Carmelina the wife of Fatta in front of her house. I also see the lazv Fatta leaning against the wall of his wife's house. The crier wishes to thank Carmelina for storage of his uniform during the difficult time of the invasion'. He wishes also to address a few words to her lazy husband. It is unfortunate lazy Fatta Fat-ta that you never learned to read. It 'is too bad that you were too slothful sloth-ful to memorize the letters of the alphabet This afternoon you would have had a chance to read of the chances which our friends the Americans intend to bring about here in Adano. (TO BE CONTINUED) |