The Unwilling Vestal | Page 8

His shop was rather large for those days, nearly fifteen feet wide and
fully twenty deep. It faced directly on the street, from which it was
separated only by the stone counter which occupied all the front except
a narrow entrance at one side. Above the counter projected the heavy
shutters which closed the shop at night and which, being hinged at the

top, were by day pushed upward and outward so as to form a sort of
pent like a wooden substitute for an awning. The entrance by the end of
the counter was closed by a solid little gate. Behind the counter was the
low stool from which Truttidius rose to chaffer with customers, and on
which, when not occupied in trading, he sat at work, his bench and
brazier by his side, his tools hanging on the wall by his hand, orderly in
their neat racks or on their neat rows of hooks. Except for the trifling
wall-space which they occupied, the walls were hidden under sieves
hanging close together; bronze sieves, copper sieves, rush sieves with
rims of white willow wood, white horse-hair sieves whose hoops were
stout ash, sieves of black horse-hair stretched in rims of clean steamed
oak and linen sieves hooped about with birch. Sieves were piled on the
counter, mostly fancy sieves with hoops of carved wood strung with
black and white horse-hair interlaced in bold patterns, or copper sieves,
polished till they shone, they being most likely to catch the eyes of the
passing throng.
Brinnaria, sprawled on the sofa against the wall behind the work-bench,
surveyed her surroundings and sighed happily, entirely at home.
Truttidius was beating copper wire, a process always fascinating to
watch.
"I've had an awful time in the country with Aunt Septima," Brinnaria
chatted, "and I had an awful scare before they sent me to the country.
Daddy threatened to make me a Vestal."
"In place of Rabulla?" Truttidius queried, glancing up.
"Yes," Brinnaria answered, "but I got off; my, but I was scared
though."
"You didn't want to be a Vestal?" Truttidius asked, eyeing her over his
work.
"Not I!" Brinnaria declared. "I can't think of anything worse except
being killed."
"Well," mused Truttidius, "there is no accounting for tastes. Most girls
would be wild with delight at the idea. But there would be no sense in
being a Vestal unless you wanted to be one."
"I don't," Brinnaria proclaimed emphatically, "but I have been thinking
about Vestals ever since Daddy threatened me and scared me so; I've
been thinking about Vestals and sieves. Did anybody ever really carry
water in a sieve, Truttidius?"

"Water in a sieve?" the old man exclaimed. "Not anybody that ever I
saw. What do you mean?"
"You must have heard the story of Tuccia, the Vestal," Brinnaria
wondered, wide-eyed. "She lived ages ago, before Hannibal invaded
Italy, when everything was different. They said she was bad and she
said it was a lie and they said she could not prove it was a lie and she
said she could. She said if she was all she ought to be the Goddess
would show it by answering her prayer. And she took a sieve and
walked down to the river, right by the end of the Sublician bridge,
where the stairs are on the right-hand side. And the five other Vestals,
and the flamens, and all the priests, and the Pontifex, and the consuls
went with her. And she stood on the lowest step with her toes in the
water and prayed out loud to the Goddess to help her and show that she
had told the truth and then she stooped over and dipped up water with
her sacrificing ladle and poured it into the sieve and it didn't run
through, and she dipped up more and more until the sieve was half full
of water, as if it had been a pan. And then she hung her ladle at her
girdle-hook and took the sieve in both hands and carried the water all
the way to the temple. And everybody said that that proved that she had
told the truth.
"That's the story. Had you ever heard it?"
"Yes, little lady," Truttidius said, "I have heard it."
"What I want to know," Brinnaria pursued, "is this: Is it a made-up
story or is it a true story P"
Little lady," spoke Truttidius, "it is impious to doubt the truth of pious
stories handed down from days of old."
"That isn't answering my question," said the practical Brinnaria. "What
I want you to tell me is to say right out plain do you believe it. Did
anybody really ever carry water in a sieve?"
"You must remember, dear little lady," the sieve-maker said, "that she
was a most holy priestess, most