50,000-Fold

Frail, flame-haired Fabio Signorini, 10, was the smartest boy in his class--and the only one unable to bring a postcard to school for the geography project. With tears of shame in his eyes, Fabio explained matters to his teacher. Neither his mother nor his grandparents can read or write. His father was captured by the Russians on the Don nine years before, and, like 60,000 other Italian soldiers, has not been heard of since. None of the other ten relatives who share the poverty-ridden farmhouse in Sant' Alessandro had ever sent or received a postcard in their lives.

Teacher Ilda Rossi considered Fabio's problem. Why, she asked, didn't he write a letter to a newspaper? Maybe some kind reader would send him a postcard. Fabio leaped on the idea. Two weeks later, his plea for postcards appeared in Milan's weekly Domenica del Corrieri. The response was immediate. Bundles of postcards began arriving from all over Italy, France, Belgium and Switzerland. Others followed from Africa, Japan, Calcutta, Rio de Janeiro and even Union City, N.J. Some days brought more than 1,000 cards. Some people sent money, chocolates; one offered him a job when he grows up; another offered a 15-day round trip to Salzburg. A battalion of the French Foreign Legion adopted him as mascot.

Fabio and his grandfather had to hitch up the old oxcart to carry all the mail home. By last week, as the total climbed to more than 50,000 postcards, letters and packages, the nearest post office, 40 miles away in Volterra, had taken on an extra man just to handle Fabio's mail.

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