God willing. Isn't it true that we are progressives?”617 “Things are going not only going full steam but they are going like the telegraph. In one year, with God's help and the charity of our benefactors, we have been able to open 20 houses. Presently we have over 70 houses with 30,000 pupils . See how your family has increased!”618 “The great undertakings we have at hand, call for many prayers that all may turn out well”. This is how he began a letter addressed from France to his closest collaborator (Father Michael Rua).619 Don Bosco was projecting similar developments for the young Salesians of South America: "Things here are taking gigantic steps”620
These were not only idealised projects. Don Bosco was great with his projects but no less great in the hidden daily work of setting up the means, the tools needed for the realisation of the same projects. Perhaps this was the most recognisable aspect of a life marked by poverty and by a tireless search for help.
The first nightmare has a name: “the Baker”. “Miseries keep on re-doubling and I am working out day and night how to pay the Baker. I still have the Baker's March bill to pay and I do not know where to get the money from”.621 “Should you be able to help me, you would be feeding poor and hungry boys”.622 “Here we are doing all we can. The mice cannot play near the cat's claws!” 623"The price of bread leaves us desperate”.624
Poverty afflicted every part of his work. “Our houses are penniless”. 625 "Misery is the only song you hear sung everywhere, but we have an abundance of youngsters entrusted to our care everyday. We are hoping and we are praying”626 Don Bosco also finds inspiration in the The Barber of Seville: tutti ne chiedono, tutti ne vogliono.Un poco alla volta, per carità. (They all ask for it. They all want it. A little bit at a time, for God’s sake).627
This search for bread almost became a “testament” in one of his last letters, dated November 7, 1887: "Hunger moves a wolf out of his den, so the proverb says, The same way my needs move me to bother certain benefactors, something I would not do in ordinary circumstances.. Please, help me to the degree which suits you best... I cannot write anymore. These are the last efforts of my poor hand”. 628. Don Bosco's efforts to muster the help of his collaborators and benefactors were uninterrupted. He did this through personal contacts, with hundreds of individual letters and circular letters. "Keep on being cheerful’, he wote to his best helper, “Look for money. Let the Cavaliere carry on a successful business and let Buzzetti help him. This is all I can do from here”. 629 "You, then, in omnibus labora. Do your best to collect donations and if we cannot do it in any other way carry out or plan to carry out a useful robbery, or better still, work out some sort of mathematical ‘subtraction' in some Bankers’ House”. 630 Don Bosco asked for loans; organised lotteries; invented all sorts of ways of begging; promoted benefit concerts”.631 He was gifted with the art of 'cultivating' his benefactors efficiently, to the point where it
617 Letter to Countess di Camburzano, 28 July 1878, E III 370.
618 Letter to Countess Uguccioni, 18 Nov. 1878, E III 417.
619 Letter to Don Rua 11 Jan. 1879, E III 436; “Our affairs here are going ahead fabulously, as the world would say, but we
say prodigiously” (Letter to Don Rua from Marseilles, 17 Jan. 1879, E III 442).
620 Letter to Don Taddeo Remotti, 31 Jan. 1881, E IV 9; cf. letter to Don G. Fagnano, 31 Jan. 1881, E IV 13-14. 621 Letter to Canon De Gaudenzi, 17 Dec. 1855, Em I 276; cf. letter 19 Jan. 1854, Em I 215.
622 Letter to Baron Feliciano Ricci des Ferres, 7 May 1856, Em I 288.
623 Letter to Cavalier Oreglia 7 Dec., 1867, Em II 456.
624 Letter to Cavalier Oreglia 10 April., 1868, Em II 5226.
625 Letter to Don Rua, July 1876 E III 77.
626 Letter to Don Rua, 13 Oct. 1876, E III 104.
627 Letter to Don Rua, Jan. 1878, E III 285.
628 Letter to Mrs. Zavaglia-Manica, 7 Nov. 1887, E IV 384.
629 Letter to Don Rua, 24 Jan. 1869, E II 7.
630 Letter to Don Dalmazzo, 9 Dec. 1880, E III 639.
631 Cf. Appeal for a lottery, 20 Dec., 1851, Em I 139-141; Em I 141.140, 186, 222, 314, 317-319, 476-478, 478-480; Em II
130-131; E III 94-95, 99-100 etc.