Eleanor and Franklin by Joseph P. Lash Page A

boy.” Eleanor is so sweet and good with him and really is learning to read and write for love of it making it possible to tell him stories which he cannot understand.
    He told her of
    the little things such as Ellie’s feeding the pigeons on the Piazza at St. Marks, the lovely music on the Canal in decorative Gondolas by the band of the “32” Regiment, the delight that Eleanor and I have taken in the Lido Shore, wandering up and down looking over the blue Adriatic watching the gray surf and catching funny little crabs!
    For Eleanor, the high point in Venice was her father acting as gondolier and singing along with the other boatmen.
    They moved on to Florence and then Naples, because, said Anna, “it is warmer.” From Sorrento in November, Anna wrote to Bamie that Elliott
    goes sailing every day & takes the children in the morning. I went one afternoon but cannot stand it. Elliott generally takes a nap in the boat in the afternoon. Last night I only got four hours sleep owing to a dear sweet letter from Aunt Annie which completely upset Elliott. Don’t repeat this, but beg them to write brightly. Elliott is so nervous everything upsets him. First he sobbed, then got furious and went out, said he would never go home, etc. and worked himself into a perfect fever of excitement.
    To her mother she wrote more reassuringly.
    This is the most beautiful place, right on the bay with Naples. Vesuvius and Capri opposite and only a little way off Pompeii. Elliott takes both children sailing every morning, while I have an Italian lesson from the Priest here, and later in the afternoon we drive and then go on the water for the sunset.
    Pregnant again and unwell, Anna was in bed much of the time, and when Elliott proposed a trip to Vesuvius she begged off. He took Eleanor and her nurse, Albertina. The three were late getting back and Anna had worried herself into a state close to hysterics. For little Eleanor it was an exciting but exhausting trip. Years later she recalled the endless journey down the slope and how it took all her self-control to stand it “without tears so that my father would not be displeased.” Fear of her father’s displeasure also seared Eleanor’s memory of the donkey that she was given in Sorrento.
    â€œYou are not afraid are you?” The tone was incredulous, astonished, and the man looked down from his horse to the child on her small donkey. The eyes were kind, but she sat shivering and hung back, looking at the steep descent. A steely look came into the man’s eyes and in a cold voice he said: “You may go back if you wish, but I did not know you were a coward.” She went back and the man went on sliding down the hill after the grown-ups—the nurse and the little donkey boy escorted the five year old girl along the dusty highway back to Sorrento, Italy. 1
    In her autobiography Eleanor recalled another episode with the donkey and the little donkey boy, whose feet were cut and bleeding. “On one occasion we returned with the boy on the donkey and I was running along beside him, my explanation being that his feet bled too much!”
    Grasping at externals, Anna thought Elliott was getting better in Sorrento. Not that she supposed he could as yet stand temptation, but she hoped for great things from the next two months; perhaps by the beginning of March they might be able to return home. But she did not feel she could manage the homeward trip alone. She was expecting a baby in June and pleaded with Bye to come over. As the winter rains started and the children took sick “in the nasty wet cold,” the doctorsprescribed a cold, dry climate, and the family settled down for the winter in the old university city of Graz in Austria, in “the beautiful mountains of southern Styria.” At first they all felt “the benefit” of the “hardy, honest and healthy climate,” and Elliott even managed to get off a cheerful report to