Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/289

Rh of Italians there who will show me the street. After finding our cousin, my mother is found; and if I do not find him, I shall go to the consul: I shall search out that Argentine family. Whatever happens, there is work for all there; I shall find work also; sufficient at least, to earn enough to get home.”

And thus little by little he almost succeeded in persuading his father. His father esteemed him; he knew that he had good judgment and courage; that he was inured to privations and sacrifices; and that all these good qualities had acquired double force in his heart in consequence of the sacred project of finding his mother, whom he adored. In addition to this, the captain of a steamer, the friend of an acquaintance of his, having heard the plan mentioned, undertook to procure a free third-class passage for the Argentine Republic.

Finally, after a little hesitation, the father gave his consent. The voyage was decided on. They filled a sack with clothes for him, put a few crowns in his pocket, and gave him the address of the cousin; and one fine evening in April they saw him on board.

“Marco, my son,” his father said to him, as he gave him his last kiss, with tears in his eyes, on the plank of the steamer, which was on the point of starting, “take courage. You have set out on a holy undertaking, and God will aid you.”

Poor Marco! His heart was strong and prepared for the hardest trials of this voyage; but when he beheld his beautiful Genoa disappear on the horizon, and found himself on the open sea on that huge steamer thronged with emigrating peasants, alone, unacquainted