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Trusty Errand Service |
In the crowded streets of Five Points, Irish girl Penny O’Connell and Italian boy Patty Moretti defy prejudice to start an errand business together. With patched clothes and big dreams, they turn a cramped back room into the headquarters of The Trusty Hands Errand Service. Rivalries and gang threats erupt, but the children’s determination draws in messengers from both sides of the divide. Slowly, the business flourishes, and years later Penny and Patty’s bond grows into love, symbolizing hope for their families and their city. |
The story of Pasquale Moretti and Penny O’Connell began long before they ever set eyes on New York City or on each other.
In Southern Italy, the Moretti family watched their fields turn to dust. Season after season, the skies refused to rain, and when crops failed, the king’s tax collectors still came knocking. “No rain, no harvest, but always taxes,” Pasquale’s father muttered bitterly as he pulled another dry stalk from the earth. The family knew hunger too well, and when the last coins were gone, Giuseppe and Maria Moretti gathered their children and boarded a crowded ship bound for America—the land where, rumor said, the streets were paved with gold.
Across the sea in Northern Ireland, the O’Connells faced their own despair. Blight blackened the potato fields, and angry voices filled the streets with talk of politics and rebellion. Work was backbreaking, if one could even find a job “Better to fight for a dream than bury another child here,” Ma O’Connell said, her voice trembling as she held Penny’s hand. With hearts heavy, but full of hope, the family joined the endless tide of emigrants sailing west to the golden shores of America.
After weeks of sickness and salt air, both families sailed past LADY LIBERTY and staggered onto the piers of the immigrant depot on Ellis Island in New York Harbor. They were herded through an exhausting and humiliating maze of document checks, medical screenings, and interviews. Finally, they were pushed onto a ferry for the short ride to Manhattan. They gazed at the towers that rose in front of them with amazement; taller than any hills they had left behind. To the weary children, the city looked like the gates of heaven—that is, until they reached the neighborhood where they were to live and were assaulted with soot, sewage, and sweat mixed into a stench so thick it seemed to stick to their skin. The Morettis and the O’Connells, though strangers, both found themselves in the same place: Five Points. .......
