No, she would document only her success. She summoned the itinerant photographer who showed up in Cato once or twice a year and had him photograph her family on the steps of the Broad Street mansion. Then she had him take a picture of the store.

She did not wish to be deleted from the memory of her paese; Castagna should have some knowledge of her—the kind she provided.

She became expansive with good fortune. With the sons now in the business, Umbertina told Serafino he could retire. “You’ve done your work, old man,” she said with her brusque affection, “now retire and let your sons work for you.”

Sometimes as he napped after dinner and she was going over business matters with Jake and Ben, she’d look over in his direction and say with pretended scorn and a toss of her head, “Guarda, guarda, occhi chiusi—look, look at old shut-eyes!”

The new century began auspiciously. It was a prosperous year all around: The first tentative Italian businesses on upper Bleecker Street had succeeded and were followed by several caffè and then the fine Hotel and Restaurant Roma. Pay was up to $1.50 or $1.75 a day for laborers and Jake was bringing home $12 a week just from his streetcar job. La Luce came out weekly and was a great help to business, for it printed announcements on its front page of arrivals at the Longobardi store: caciocavallo cheese and pasta from Naples; nuts from Sorrento; baccalà from Livorno; beans, figs, semolina, oregano, pignoli, anchovies, camomilla, and Fernet-Branca from Milan; cipolletti from Basilicata, and chestnuts from Calabria.

And in this land of plenty, Paul read to Umbertina that in Italy the tax on consumption of bread and pasta had finally been abolished, at which she shook her head grimly, remembering her father, poveretto, and his bitterness. And then they heard that the bandit Musolino had been captured again after his third attempt to escape, and Serafino’s eyes turned vague, looking into the distance as he remembered the mountains of Aspromonte where he had shepherded sheep and where fugitives from the law had hidden. Bravo, Musolino! he would think; if only you can make good your next escape to the mountains you will be safe.

Also in the paper were disquieting notices of lost persons—persons who had emigrated to the United States years ago and not been heard of since by relatives in Italy. Where had they gone? What had happened that they had lost all ties to their families?