The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-01-07

Nerina Taccari was a woman of forty
five years OF age; she was a brown,
comely, stout person, finely built and
strongly made, with smile like sun
shine, and teeth as white as a dogs, and
brown eyes which were apt to have
storms in them at times when the stu
pidity or Viciousness of other folks pro-
Voked her. She had been born in a lit
tie hamlet on the Sabine hills; high up
on a mountain spur, where torrents ran,
and SHOWS often gathered; and, far
down below, one Of the greatest and
fairest scenes Of earth was outspread,
as in frescoes by old masters volume
lies open On the knees Of Jehovah. She
had been married at fourteen years of
age to a herdsman of the Campagna,
and before she was twenty had known
most of the trials of life; hunger, ILL
treatment, and the bearing and loss of
children, the fatigue Of ill-fed toll, and
the injustice of a spouse who expected
her to make bread with stones. When
she approached her thirtieth year her
husband after what seemed to her a
lifetime of woe, was killed by one of his
bulls; the animal, goaded into just rage
by his cruelty, felled and tossed him,
and the whole herd passed triumphantly
over his body. which was trampled into
a mere mass of bleeding, grass-stained
pulp. Nerina herself could not have
recognized it when it was brought on a
hurdle home to her hut, a conical pile
of red tufa, stones and turf, built under
the shadow of the Castel Giubileo. Left
owners of the herd to leave the tufa
cabin, in which she and her spouse had
lived, she went back to her own people
in the hills, and thence into service with
a family she knew, to get away from
the many miserable memories, and hun
ger and toll, which had been alone her
portion on the Agro Romano. She was
mountain born, and the heat and
drouth of the plains were hateful to
her. The little city to which she went
was in topmost spur of her own Sa-
bine Apennines-a small gray ancient
place, with gigantic walls and marble
ruins and tenth-century houses clus-
tered round i Longobardo church. It
still retained its thirteenth century ram
parts. and a deep, though narrow
stream foamed beneath its bastions, rush
to tumble into the Licenza, which in its
turn fed the Arno ere Arno fell into the
Tibera. Here she spent sixteen peaceful
wears; working hard, but living as one
of the family and attaching herself to
them with the affection of dog. They
were the peorle who had been ever good
to her Her mistress, Caterina Loren
zetti always called Madame Tina by her
neighbors and servants, was widow
with three young sons, who. had means
enough to live with certain ease,
though fruga!ly and simply, in a small
venerable house which looked from the
rampArts on the valley of the Arno far
below, and had withstood many
rough time Of siege and assault In the
wars between the popes and the lords OF
Tiyoli and Palestrina, of Sublaco ana
Oliyano and of all the walled villages
and grim etrongholds which then
frowned in the face of the setting sun.
Nerina loved the merry. good-natureu'
harE some lads, but she adored their
mother. who had never said harsh vera
m her: although her clumsiness ana ls-
norance and violence in the first years
had sorely tried the patience OF NINE
Tina, who had been reared in a convent
and possessed by both nature and NAB
If the strong instincts of order, tranquil
ity and calm.
"If tun her out" the good lady re-
piled TO the counsels Of her neighbors In
those early days, 81 shall have crime
on my conscience, for she known nothing
and is of a violent temper; In despera-
+ion she might do something rash; her
heart is good and 1 hope to guide her
Alright, SO that she can take her own way
safely as time goes On when l shall De
no more"
Her patience did not fail her IN her
task, and Nerina became d grateful ana
capable servant; never very peaceable,
quiet or accomplished, but unremitting IN
her effort. devoted in sickness, useful IN
all homely, hardy ways and 1illed with
passion of loyalty and love for Mime.
Tina and the three bright boys. who hao
all the ola seraphic beauty OF lIsiy II
+bair handsome faces and who, If they
sometimes plagued her, loved her warmly
in return.
Every drop of water which was used II
the house she brought up in bronze pals
from tile well on the rampant; she went