He had known Nicoletta from a child and their love had followed as naturally as summer follows spring.  It had always been “Toni” and “Nicoletta” ever since he could remember.  But she was growing up, and from a boy he had become a man.  Yet how could he marry when he could hardly earn enough to support his mother and himself?  They talked it over time and time again.  If Vito would only return or good times come it might be possible.  But meantime there was nothing to do but wait.  Nicoletta blossomed into womanhood.  Had she not been betrothed she would have been called an old maid.  Neither she nor Toni took any part in the village merrymakings.  Why should they?  He was thirty and she twenty-five.  They might have married ten years ago had not the elder brother gone away.  Toni secretly feared that the time would never come when they would be man and wife, but he patiently labored on earning his two lire, or at most two lire and a half, a day.

Then a man returned from America just for the harvest to see his family.  He said that Vito was alive.  He had not seen him himself, but others had seen him and he was rich.  He told of the plentifulness of gold in America, where every one was comfortable and could lay up a fortune.  He himself had saved over five thousand lire in four years and owned a one-third interest in a fruit store.  He was going to take his brother’s family back with him—­all of them.  They would be rich, too, in a little while.  A man was a fool to stay in Italy.  Why did not Toni come back with him?  He would get him a place on the railroad where one of his friends was padrone.

Toni discussed it all with Nicoletta, and she talked with the man herself.

“Toni,” she said at length, “why do you not go?  Here you are earning nothing.  There you could save in a month enough to keep your mother in comfort for a year.  You have to pay the nurse, and that takes a great deal.  While you are here it would cause talk if I came to live in your home to care for your mother but if you go away I can do so without comment and it will cost nothing.  Perhaps you will find Vito.  If not you will soon make enough to send for both your mother and me.”

“You are a good girl,” he answered, kissing her, “but I could not shift the responsibility of my mother to your shoulders.  Still, I will talk to Father Giuseppi about it.”

The priest thought well of the plan (he was a little excited over America himself), and agreed to break the matter to the mother.

She begged Toni piteously not to go.  He was her only surviving son.  Vito was dead.  Let him but wait a little while and she would not be there to stand in his way.  Then the priest added his personal assurance that it would be for the best, and the mother finally gave way.  Toni was obliged to tear himself away by force from the arms of the old woman lying upon the bed, and her feeble sobs echoed in his ears as he trudged down the road with