the shop windows style her, and it proved a financial failure. It costs money to give a festa—that is to say, a festa of the style and extent which are necessary in doing adequate honor to this saint. In Italy, in the villages from which the people who live about the Bend come, it is customary to have a festa in honor of the saint every year. And it seemed hard when the people who got up last year's festa decided that they did not again wish to have to shoulder the burden of the festa's bad debts.
At this time, when everybody else had backed down, Michel Siniscalchi, who deals in colored glass bulbs and similar decorations, stepped to the fore. He said it seemed a shame that they could not honor the saint. Indeed he was so pained by the thought that he would be willing to bear the expenses of the festa himself. He would, of course, furnish all the decorations himself, and his name would appear as president of the comitato on the banners and placards.
This offer was accepted with glee by the men and more especially by the women, who would have taken to heart the loss of a chance to honor their saint. And Michel Siniscalchi set to work to organize his festa. It was, by the way, part of the agreement, that the offerings placed in the saint's shrine should go to help Siniscalchi.
Colored lights were strung in arches over the narrow street at frequent intervals, banners and yards of bunting draped the house windows, the confetti men and peddlers of fruit and sweetmeats came from blocks around, and on Saturday night the festa opened with much braying of music and no little religious devotion.
The most important decoration was the shrine of the saint's picture. In a niche of the shrine the picture was placed, and rows of candles were set before it and the tasseled cloth of gold on which it rests. Then there were the plates and certain lithographic reproductions of the picture.
Since Saturday night the festa has held full sway. There is a preliminary celebration in the morning, and then everybody stops until two o'clock in the afternoon. For a brief spell around dinner time, every one but the band rests, and after dinner the people turn out to listen to the music and to gossip. It is a great occasion for gossip, the festa.
At present everybody is talking about the amount of money Michel Siniscalchi may lose by his speculations. The old men sit before the banca across the street from the shrine and
