ing about them at every step now that
there was no more need of haste. For they had got amongst the vineyards
and orchards where they had no business, and if the peasants saw them,
the stones would begin to fly. They knew their way about, however, and
reached an open footpath without any adventure, so that in half an hour
they were on the mule track to Scalea. They walked much faster than a
grown peasant would have done, and they knew the road. Instead of
turning to the left after going down the hill beyond the tower, they
took the right hand path to the Scalea river, and as it had not rained
they got across without getting very wet. But that road is not so good
as the one to Diamante, because the river is sometimes swollen, and
people with laden mules have to wait even as much as three days before
they can try the ford, and moreover there is bad air there, which
brings fever.

At last they struck the long beach and began to trudge through the sand.

"And what shall we do to-morrow?" asked Sebastiano.

Ruggiero was whistling loudly to show his younger brother that he was
not tired nor afraid of anything. At the question he stopped suddenly,
and faced the blazing blue sea.

"We can go to America," he said, after a moment's reflection.

Little Sebastiano did not seem at all surprised by the proposition, but
he remained in deep thought for some moments, stamping up a little
hillock of sand between his bare feet.

"We are not old enough to be married yet," he remarked at last.

"That is true," admitted Ruggiero, reluctantly.

Possibly, the close connection between going to America and being
married may not be apparent to the poor untutored foreign mind. It would
certainly not have been understood a hundred miles north of Sebastiano's
heap of sand. And yet it is very simple. In Calabria any strong young
fellow with a decently good character can find a wife with a small
dowry, though he be ever so penniless. Generally within a week, and
always within a fortnight, he emigrates alone, taking all his wife's
money with him and leaving her to work for her own living with her
parents. He goes to Buenos Ayres or Monte Video. If, at the end of four,
five or six years he has managed to increase the money so as to yield a
small income, and if his wife behaves herself during his absence, he
comes home again and buys a piece of land and builds a house. His
friends do not fail to inform him of his wife's conduct, and he holds
her