: The Childhood of Rome by Lamprey Louise - Children Italy Rome

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THE CHILDHOOD OF ROME

I

THE MOUNTAIN OF FIRE

Marcia, the little daughter of Marcus Vitalos the farmer, sat on a sheltered corner of a stone wall, making a willow basket. Basket weaving was one of the first things that all children of her people learned, and she was very clever at it. Her strong, brown fingers wove the osiers in and out swiftly and deftly, as a bird builds its nest. The boys and girls cut willow shoots, and reeds, and grasses that were good for this work, at the proper time, and bound them together in bundles tidily, for use later on. The straw, too, could be used for making baskets and mats after the grain was threshed out of it.

A great many baskets were needed, for they were used to hold the grain, and the beans, and the onions, and the dried fruit, and the various other things that a thrifty family kept stored away for provisions. They were also used to gather things in and to carry them in, and sometimes they took the place of dishes in serving fruit or nuts. Almost every size and shape and kind could be made use of somewhere. The one Marcia was making was round and squat and quite large, and it was to have an opening at the top large enough to put one's hand into easily, and a cover to fit.

The house in which she lived was one of the oldest in the village on the slopes of the Mountain of Fire. It was so old that there was no knowing how many children had grown up in it, but they were all of the same family,--the family of the Marcus Vitalos Colonus who built it in the first place. This long-ago settler was called Colonus, the farmer, not because he was the only farmer in the neighborhood, for everybody worked on the land, but because he was an unusually good one, a leader among them in the understanding of the good brown earth and all its ways.

His sons after him took the name Colonus, for among their people it was considered very important to belong to a good family. As soon as a man's name was mentioned his ancestry was known, if he had any worth the naming. The ancestor of all this people was said to have been Mars, the god of manhood and all manly deeds. Their names showed this, for the common ones were Marcus, Mamurius, Mavor, Mamertius and so on, with some other name added to describe their occupations, or the place where they lived, or some peculiar thing about them. Plautus meant the splay-footed man; Sylvius, the man of the forest; Marinus, the seaman,--and there had been a Marcus Vitalos Colonus in this family, ever since the first one. Marcia's elder brother, two years older than she was, had this name, but he was usually called Marcs, for in their language the last syllable was apt to be slurred over.

It was very quiet in the village just now, for all the men were off getting in the harvest. The grain lands and the pastures were some distance away, wherever the land was suitable for crops or grazing. Every morning, directly after breakfast, every one who had anything to do away from the village went out, and usually did not come back until supper time. It was said that the first Marcus Vitalos was the leader who had persuaded the people to settle down in one place instead of moving about, driving their herds here and there. It was said also that he began the custom of a common meal in the middle of the day for all the men who were working on the land. This not only saved time and trouble, but made them better acquainted and gave them time to talk over and plan the work during the hottest part of the day. When the day's toil was finished, each man returned to his own house and had supper with his family. The houses were built, not too near together, around an open square. The wall around the house enclosed the sheepfold and the cattle sheds besides. The people worked and played together for much of the time, but there was a certain plot of ground that came down from father to son in each family and belonged to that family alone. Nobody else had any rights there at all.

The people were very careful to do everything according to custom. Almost everything they did had been worked out long ago into a sort of system, which was considered the best possible way to do it. Certain customs were always observed because the gods of the land were said to be pleased with them. Whether the gods had anything to do with it or not, these children of Mars were certainly more prosperous than most of their neighbors, and had many things which they might not have had if it had not been for their careful ways. The soil of the sunshiny mountain slopes was rich and fruitful and easy to work; the clear mountain waters were pleasant and wholesome, and in certain places there were hot springs which had been found good to cure disease. It was not strange that they believed the gods took especial care of them and would go on being kind to them so long as proper respect was shown.

Marcia wove her basket, putting a band of red around the curve before she began to draw it in, and her thoughts went far and near, as thoughts do.

The family spent very little time indoors when it was possible to be in the open air. The mother sat spinning in the doorway, and the baby played at her feet. The father was harvesting, and Marcs was out with the sheep. The next younger brother, Bruno they called him, had gone fishing. Supper was in an earthen pot comfortably bubbling over the fire. It would be ready by the time they all came home. Marcia had had her dinner and helped clear away before she came out here. Although the people had some vegetables and herbs, their main crop was grain. It was a kind of cereal a little like wheat and a little like barley, with a small hard kernel, and they called it "corn," which meant something that is crushed or ground into meal. When it was pounded in a mortar and then boiled soft, it made good porridge. Boiled until it was very thick, and poured out on a flat stone or board to cool, it could be cut into pieces and eaten from the hand. The children had all they wanted, with some goat's-milk cheese and some figs. Marcia could hear them laughing and shouting as they played with the pet kid. He was old enough now to butt the smaller ones right over on their backs, and he did it whenever they gave him a chance.

Marcia was rather a silent girl, with a great deal of long black hair in heavy braids, level black brows over thoughtful eyes, and a square little chin. As she began to draw in her basket at the top, she was thinking of the stories the old people sometimes told about a long-ago time when their ancestors lived in another and far more beautiful place. There the rivers ran over sands that gleamed like sunshine, and all the land was like a garden. The houses were larger than any here and built of a white stone. There were stone statues like those she and Marcs sometimes made in clay for the children to play with, but as large as men and women and painted to look like life. The gods came and went among the children of men and taught them all that they have ever known, but much had since been forgotten. So ran the story.

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