Dago

“ You do not know Dago George.”
He did not stir for a moment; and then, with some great, overwhelming impulse upon him, he took her face in both his hands, and held it there upturned to his, and looked into the great dark eyes until the lashes dropped and hid them from his gaze.
“Teresa,” he whispered low, “there are some things that are worse than being a thief. ”

“ Wining meant more than mining then, and life was a dizzy whirl, Gambling and dropping chunks of gold down the neck of a dance-hall girl; Till we went clean mad, it seems to me, and we squandered our last poke, And we sold our claim, and we found ourselves one bitter morning—broke. The Dago Kid he dreamed a dream of his mother's aunt who died— In the dawn-light dim she came to him, and she stood by his bedside, And she said: "Go forth to the highest North till a lonely trail ye find; Follow it far and trust your star, and fortune will be kind." ”

“ Of his victims not one man was ever left alive.
They had, indeed, leagued themselves with all the fiends of Darkness and the Storm, in defiance of both Heaven and Earth.
This, then, was the sorcery by which they drew bread, meat, wine and fruit from the rocks and the sea. It was the stranded vessels that filled the chambers and vaults of the Tower of Dago with everything dear to the heart of man, and covered the rocky shore beneath the tower with that which was now dearest of all to its inmates' hearts—the fleshless bones of their brother men. ”

“ Dago George was whispering excitedly now. “Wait! Wait a minute, my little bambino!” He ran to the door, opened it, looked out, closed and locked it again, and, crossing the room, pulled the half drawn roller shade down to the window sill. He drew a chair close up to Teresa's, and sat down. “It is better to be sure, is it not? Yes, yes! And we will continue to speak English, eh? It is less understood here. Ah, my little bambino! You are your father's daughter! Yes, yes! Nicolo Capriano is not dead! ”

“ They are always getting into trouble."
"Yes, it does seem so," answered the doctor, [Pg 37] "but if we could look down to the bottom of a boy's heart, we would find that very little of the mischief that he gets into is planned for the purpose of making trouble. He does things from a pure love of fun, or from some sudden impulse, and because he never stops to think of what it may lead to. Phil never stopped to think any more than Dago would have done, what would be the result of setting fire to the powder. You must remember that he is a very little fellow, Aunt Patricia. He is only eight. ”

“ Men who speak of the islands of Diego Ramirez as the "Daggarammarines" are not likely to deal faithfully with a narrie that rings delicately like guitar strings, and Dan observed that their mention of the barque's destination had no effect upon the Dago. For him all ports had become indifferent; one was not nearer than another to any place of his desire. ”

“ It came to pass as the Master of the Tower of Dago had foretold. A year of famine visited the island.
There in his loneliness he had taken continual counsel of that great vital principle which he chose to associate with the Prince of Evil, but to which the learned give the name of "Gæa"—Earth.
And the Earth-demon has, in truth, diabolical humours. Between Earth and her minions, and the favourites of Heaven, there is eternal strife. It pleases Earth to let the ill weeds grow. ”

“ She slid down the banister after him, her chubby legs held stiffly out at each side, and the buttons on her jacket making a long zigzag [Pg 56] scratch under her, as she shot down the dark, polished rail.
A crowd of children had stopped on the curbstone in front of the house, shivering a little in the pale autumn sunshine, but laughing and pushing each other as they gathered closer around the man with the hand-organ. As the wheezy notes were ground out, the man unwound the rope that was coiled around his wrist, and bade the monkey at the other end of it step out and dance.
"Come on, Dago! ”

“ And in this very seat I'm sitting in now, I guess, a red-kerchiefed Dago woman, who worked on a pansy farm just outside of Boston, used to ride in town with me every night for a month, and she coached me quite a bit on Dago talk, and I paid her five dollars for that."
"Oh, dear me!" said the Youngish Girl, with unmistakable sincerity. "I'm afraid you haven't learned anything at all from me!"
"Oh, yes, I have too!" cried the Traveling Salesman, his whole round face lighting up suddenly with real pleasure. "I've learned about an entirely new kind of lady to go home and tell my wife about. ”

“ Then he and Elsie brought me my breakfast and sat on the floor, half crying as they watched me eat, for the order had gone forth that I must be sent away. The doctor could forgive his boys when they did wrong, but he couldn't make any allowance for me.
"I think it's too bad that we have to give up the very nicest pet we ever had, just because Aunt Patricia don't like him," exclaimed Phil, mournfully. "Dago didn't do much mischief that can't be mended. Carnelian rings are as cheap as anything. Nora said so. ”

“ So you don't want to take no notice of anything Bill says."
The Dago shook his head. "It is not that," he said. "It is not de first time I 'ave been called mad; and sometimes I have think it myself."
"Oh, go on with ye," urged Dan. "You ain't mad."
"T'ree years," went on the Dago in his mournful, subdued voice. "T'ree years I go about an' work, always poor, dirty work, an' got no name, only 'Dago.' I t'ink all de time 'bout my leetle beautiful town; but sometimes I t'ink, too, when I am tired an' people is hard to me: 'It is a dream. De world has no place so good as dat.' What you t'ink, Dan?" ”

“ He did not hear the mate's brief order that summoned him and the others across the deck.
"When I go out on de fishin' boat," he said aloud, thinking Dan was still at his side, "a girl was singin' an'—"
"Here, you!" cried the mate. "What's the matter with you? Why don't you?"
He stopped in amazement, for the Dago turned and spat a brief word at him, making a gesture with his hand as though to command silence. ”

“ Julis Harrison and her son William swept through. The hoofs of the dancing horses beat a tattoo on the cobblestones. The mother saw nothing, but the narrow eyes of her son appraised the group of boys and even the babies as potential workers in the Mills. These Dago children grew rapidly, but not fast enough to keep pace with the needs of the growing furnaces; and so many of them died before they reached manhood. ”

“ He isn’t really a Dago, you know, but that’s what we call him. He has big black eyes, an’ curly black hair, an’ is a kind of thin-faced chap. Smart? Well, I guess yes!
“‘Notes?’ says the new boy. ‘One, two—three each, makes six. They was six notes.’
“‘Gewhillikins!’ says the Dago. ‘That’s trouble, sure. An’ we had 9148 down good for four plunks. Say, Softy, they’ll call again as soon as they can catch their breath. Whose turn is it?’
“It was me next on the bench, an’ so I sings out: ‘Mine.’
“‘You’re not up to this,’ says the Dago. ‘This takes a S. Holmes. Mike, you let me go. ”

“ Nobody ever thought of calling Tony a Dago, and nobody ever had—more than once; but these other fellows, plainly, were Dagos and to be regarded as such. For upward of a month now their presence in the community had meant little or nothing to the community, one way or the other, until one of them so far forgot himself as to carve up Beaver Yancy.
The railroad made a big mistake when it hired Northern bosses to handle black natives ”

“ Forty-five minutes later Dawson and Freddy Farmer were back on the flying field, grinning from ear to ear, and walking over toward the Operations Office.
"Boy! Do I feel like a new man!" Dave said, and let out a happy sigh. "I sure was worried while that call was being put through. Not that I don't like Dago, you understand. ”

“ It's awful when a little boy's mother is dead, and there isn't anybody in the whole world to love him but a monkey!"
The door was open into Elsie's room. She heard what he said, and in a minute, she came pattering across the carpet in her little bare feet and climbed up on the bed beside me.
"Don't say that, brother," she begged, leaning over and kissing him. "Dago isn't the only one that loves you, 'cause there's me. Don't cry."
"But, oh," wailed Phil, "papa didn't say one word about my staying! He doesn't care if [Pg 90] I run away. ”

“ But a small and poverty-stricken republic like the island of Dago could not so easily get gold and silver to give in exchange for bread. The poor people had to fall back upon such nutriment as fish and cheese. "This [Pg 44] year," they said, "we must eat no bread." That was the solution.
The old women of the island now came much more frequently to the tower to sell their flowers. But instead of gold they now begged for a little corn.
"Listen to me!" said the Master of the tower to them one day. "You want bread. ”

“ Tales of food and drink are always sure of a hearing in the fo'c'sle.
"On a table of de black wood, shining, an' a leetle cloth like snow," the Dago went on; "an' de black woman dat brings it smiles wiz big white teeth."
He paused, seeing it all the tropic languor and sweetness of the life he had conjured up, so remote, so utterly different from the rough-hewn realities that surrounded him.
"Shove that beef-kid down this way, will yer?" called Bill.
"You wait," answered Dan. ”

“ Stan, in the spot near the cabin slide, did likewise, estimating the distance and trying to spot an opponent in the light. Nothing could be seen but that light, but arrows aimed at it should find a mark!
Any second might bring the rat-rat of a machine gun and death but the two chums had been through that sort of situation before and they stood their ground, hoping, waiting!
The boat came on towards the Water Witch, slower now, and began to run alongside.
“You keeds!” yelled Dago. “Come on now, lay down those bows before you getta hurt! You come on peaceful and we no—break your necks!” ”

“ We are too intolerant and logical; give me the broadminded and wholly unscrupulous Dagoes for business partners. We lack sympathy with human weakness, but the Dagoes coin dollars out of it all the time. If I were a wee bit younger I would turn Dago myself."
When at last the Humming Top cast off at Lisbon and stretched away at her leisurely eleven knots for Colon and the South Seas she was stuffed with stores of "prodeegious richness," all insured.
"But go careful, Ching, if you love me," implored Ewing. ”

“ A story of two boys. The devotion and care of Steven, himself a small boy, for his baby brother, is the theme of the simple tale.
Ole Mammy's Torment.
"Ole Mammy's Torment" has been fitly called "a classic of Southern life." It relates the haps and mishaps of a small negro lad, and tells how he was led by love and kindness to a knowledge of the right.
The Story of Dago.
In this story Mrs. Johnston relates the story of Dago, a pet monkey, owned jointly by two brothers. Dago tells his own story, and the account of his haps and mishaps is both interesting and amusing. ”

“ Sound has admittedly much greater travelling power in such an atmosphere than in clear weather."
"Yes, I know that," said Zeno. "But the altered direction?"
"That also has quite a simple explanation. The fog itself proceeds from the south-west. This, of course, prevents the tolling of the bell from coming in a perfectly straight line from Gustavsvarn. Moreover, the vibrations, being echoed back by the cliffs of Dago, seem even louder, and in this way, too, it may appear as if they actually proceeded from the island itself." ”

“ Mother and son each have a chariot in which they career round the sky, in pursuit of one another. The horse of Day is Shinfaxi, of shining mane; the horse of Night is Hrimfaxi, rime or frost manemane.
Day had many namesakes, though more often at the end than the beginning of a word.
Dago, Tago, or Tajo, was a Gothic bishop of Zaragoza, whom King Chindaswintha sent to Rome about 640, to bring home a copy of St. Gregory’s Comment on the Book of Job, which had been dedicated to a King of Spain, one of the Suevi, but had been lost in the irruption of the Arian Goths. ”

“ He picks a Dago here, and a Dutchman there, and all the Sou'wegians he sees, and fills in with the rakin's and scrapin's o' Hell, Bedlam, and Newgate, knowin' they'll hate one another worse than they hate him, and never stand together. ”

“ The tale soon got round that Ikey had stolen the boots off the dead Dago, and it made a lot of feeling{129} against him. But he only laughed and sneered when folks looked askance at him, and at last he left off making any secret of the thing he’d done.
“Call yourselves men!” says he. “And scared of a little dead rat of an Eyetalian that was no great shakes of a man when he was livin’!”
“Let the fool have his way!” says old Balto the Finn. “From a dead corpse were they taken, to a dead corpse will they go.” ”

“ Rut the pilots, drawing their shoulders up and repeating the refrain, "No practico, no possebla!" cursed us bitterly, and were in a vile mood, I was told, cursing more than usual, and that is saying a great deal, for all will agree who have heard them that the average "Dago" pilot is the most foul-mouthed thing afloat.
Down the river and past the light-ship we came once more, this time with no halt to make, no backing sails to let a pilot off, nothing at all to stop us; we spread all sail to a favourable breeze, and reached Ilha Grande eight days afterward, beating the whole fleet by two days. ”