FIDDLE-JOHN’S FAMILY.
I.
“Queer sort of chap that Fiddle-John is,” said the men, when Fiddle-John went by.
“Quaint sort o’ cr’atur’ is Fiddle-John,” echoed the women; “not much in the providin’ line.”
“A singular individual is that Violin-John,” said the parson; “I can never make up my mind whether he is a worthless scamp or a man of genius.” “Possibly both,” suggested the parson’s wife. “Apartments to let,” remarked the daughter, tapping her forehead significantly.
“Hurrah! There is Fiddle-John,” cried the children, flocking delightedly about him, clinging to his arms, his legs, and his coat-tails. “Sing us a song, Fiddle-John! Tell us a story!”
Then Fiddle-John would seat himself on a stone at the road-side, while the children nestled about him; and he would tell them stories about knights and ladies, and ogres, and princesses, and all sorts of marvellous things.
“Worthless fellow, that Fiddle-John,” said the passers-by; “there he sits in the middle of the day talking nonsense to the children, when he ought to be working for the support of his family.”
It was perfectly true; Fiddle-John ought to have been working. He would readily have admitted that himself. He was well aware that his wife, Ingeborg, was at home, working like a trooper to keep the family from starving. But then, somehow, Fiddle-John had no taste for work, while Ingeborg had. He much preferred singing songs and telling stories. And a very pretty picture he made, as he sat there at the roadside, with his handsome, gentle face, his large blue eyes, and his wavy blond hair, and the children nestling about him, listening in wide-eyed wonder. There was something very attractive about his face, with its mild, melancholy smile, and a sort of diffident, questioning look in the eyes. He had an odd habit of opening his mouth several times before he spoke, and then, possibly, if his questioner’s face did not please him, he would go away, having said nothing. And, after all, it was diffidence and not insolence which prompted this action. It would never have occurred to Fiddle-John to take a critical view of anybody; he approved of all humanity in general, only he had an intuitive suspicion when anyone was making fun of him, and in such cases he found safety only in flight and silence.
By profession Fiddle-John was a ballad-singer; a queer profession, you will say, but nevertheless one which in Norway enjoys a certain recognition. He had a voice which the angels might have envied him—a clear and sweet tenor which rang through the depths of the listener’s soul. Hearing that voice, it was impossible not to stay and listen. The deputy sheriff, who once came to arrest Fiddle-John for vagrancy, when Fiddle-John began to sing, sat and cried. It came over him so “sorter queer,” he said. The parson, who had made up his mind to give Fiddle-John a thundering reproof for neglect of his family, the first time he should catch him, quite forgot his sinister purpose when, one day, he saw the ballad-singer seated under a large tree, with a dozen children climbing over him, and, with rollicking laughter, tumbling and rolling about him. And when Fiddle-John, having quieted his audience, took two little girls on his lap, while the boys scrambled and fought for the places nearest to him, the parson could not for the life of him recall the harsh things he had meant to say to Fiddle-John. The fact was—though, of course, it is scarcely fair to tell—the ballad which Fiddle-John sang to the children reminded the parson of the time (now long ago) when he was paying court to Mrs. Parson, and sometimes, on slight provocation, dropped into poetry.
“Thy cheeks are like the red, red rose,
Thy hands are like the lily.”
These were the very extraordinary sentiments which the parson had, at that remote period, professed toward Mrs. Parson, and these were the very words which Fiddle-John was now singing. No wonder the parson forgot that he had come to scold Fiddle-John. “I suppose that such good-for-nothings may be good for something, after all,” he said to his wife as he related the incident at the dinner-table.
Fiddle-John and his family lived in a little cottage close up under the mountain-side, where the sun did not reach until late in the afternoon. In the winter they were sometimes snowed down so completely that they had to work until noon before they could get a glimpse of the sky. The two boys, Alf and Truls, would go early in the morning with their snow-shovels and dig a tunnel to the cow-stable, where a lonely cow, a pig, and three sheep were penned up. Their father would then sit at the window, holding a lantern, the light of which vaguely penetrated the darkness and showed them in what direction they were digging; but, after awhile, this monotonous occupation wearied him, and he would take his fiddle and play the most mournful tunes he could think of. It never occurred to him to lend a helping hand; and it never occurred to the boys to ask him.
They accepted their fate without much reasoning; it seemed part of the right order of things that they and their mother should work, while their father played and sang. Ingeborg, their mother, had nursed a kind of tender reverence for him in their hearts, since they were babes. He seemed scarcely part of the coarse and common work-a-day world to which they belonged; with his gentle, handsome face, and his clear blue eyes, he seemed like some superior being who conferred a favor upon them by merely consenting to grant them his company. His songs travelled from one end of the valley to the other, and everybody learned them by heart and sang them at weddings, dances, and funerals. Even though the parishioners might themselves find fault with Fiddle-John, and call him quaint and queer, they stood up for him bravely if a stranger ventured to attack him.
They knew there was not another such singer in the whole land, and it was even said that people had come from foreign lands and had made him enormous offers if he would go with them and sing at concerts in the great foreign cities. Thousands of dollars he might have earned if he had gone, but Fiddle-John knew better than to abandon the valley of his birth, where he had been known since his babyhood, and trust himself to the faithless foreign world. Thousands of dollars! Only think of it! The very thought made Fiddle-John dizzy; ten or twenty dollars would have presented something definite to his imagination, which he would have comprehended, but thousands of dollars was a blank enormity which diffused itself like mist through his dazed brain. And yet Fiddle-John could never stop thinking of the thousands of dollars which he might have earned, if he had gone with the foreigner. If the truth must be told, he himself would have liked well enough to go; and it was only the persuasions of Ingeborg, his wife, which had restrained him. “What could you do in the great foreign world, John,” she had said to him; “you, with your want of book-learning and your simple peasant ways? They would laugh at you, John, dear, and that would make me cry, and we should both be miserable. And all the little children here in the valley, what would they do without you, and who would sing to them and tell them stories when you were gone?”
The last argument was what decided Fiddle-John, He did not believe that people would laugh at him in the great foreign world, but he did believe that the children would miss him when he was gone, and he could not bear to think of someone else sitting under the great maple-tree at the roadside and telling them stories. For all that, he regretted many a time that he had been soft-hearted, and had allowed the gate of glory to be slammed in his face, as he expressed it. He had never suspected it before; but now the thought began to grow upon him, that he was a great man, who might have gained honor and renown if his wife had not deprived him of the opportunity.
Every day the valley seemed to be growing darker and narrower; the sight of the mountains became oppressive; it was as if they weighed upon Fiddle-John’s breast and impeded his breath. With feverish restlessness he roamed about from farm to farm and played, until every string on his fiddle seemed on the point of snapping.
“I am a great man,” he reflected indignantly, “and might have earned thousands of dollars. And yet here I go and fiddle for half-drunken boors at twenty-five cents a night.”
And to drown the voices that rose clamorously out of the depths of his soul, he strummed the strings wildly; and the peasants whirled madly around him, shouted, and kicked the rafters in the ceiling. The gentleness and the mild radiance which had made the children love him passed out of his countenance; his eyes grew restless, his motions aimless and unsteady. Sometimes he flung back his head defiantly and mumbled threats between his teeth; at other times he shuffled along dejectedly, or lay under a tree, dreaming of the great world which had forever been closed to him.
“If I had only dared!” he whispered to himself; “oh, if I had only dared!”
At that moment someone stepped up to him and shook him by the shoulder. “Hallo, old chap,” said the man, “you are just the fellow I want! You are the party they call Fiddle-John?”
There was something brisk and aggressive about the stranger which almost frightened Fiddle-John. It was easy to see that he came from afar; for he had smartly-cut city-clothes, a tall shiny hat, and a huge watch-chain from which half a dozen seals and trinkets depended. Fiddle-John had never seen anything so magnificent; he was completely dazzled. He sat half-raised upon his elbow and stared at the stranger in mute wonder. “Well, Fiddle-John,” the latter went on glibly; “you don’t seem very cordial to an old friend. Or perhaps you don’t know me. Reckon I’ve changed some since you used to tell me stories about the Ashiepattle and the ogre who stowed his heart away for safe keeping inside of a duck in a goose-pond, some thousands of miles off. I have often thought of that story since. Fact is, that is just the kind of arrangement I am after. I’ve too much heart, Fiddle-John, too much heart. My heart is always getting me into trouble, and if I could make an arrangement to leave it behind here in Norway, while I myself return to America, I should like it first rate. You don’t happen to know of any party who would be willing to keep it for me during my absence, hey, Fiddle-John?”
The man here laughed uproariously and slapped Fiddle-John on the shoulder.
“You are the same rum old customer you used to be, Fiddle-John,” he said in a tone of cordial good-fellowship; “but you don’t seem as talkative as you used to be—don’t even tell me you are glad to see me. Now, that’s what I call hard, Fiddle-John. Don’t even know the name of your little friend James Forrest—or—beg your pardon—Jens Skoug, I mean to say, who used to climb on your back and listened in rapture to your wonderful voice and your marvellous fairy tales.”
A gleam of intelligence flitted across Fiddle-John’s features, as he heard the name Jens Skoug, and he arose with bashful hesitancy and extended his hand to the talkative stranger. He remembered well that Jens’ family had emigrated, some ten years ago, to the United States, and he remembered also vividly the uncouth little creature in skin-patched trousers and ragged jacket who had embarked, at that time, in the great steamer that came to take the emigrants off to Bergen. And now this little creature was a tall, dazzling man with a silk hat and showy jewellery, and an address which a prince might have envied. Thus reasoned Fiddle-John in his simplicity. Such a marvellous transformation he had never in all his life witnessed. The name James Forrest which Jens had dropped by a deliberate accident also impressed him strangely. It seemed to add greatly to Jens’ magnificence. A man who could afford to have such a foreign-sounding name must indeed be a person of enterprise and prominence. It surrounded Jens with a delightful foreign flavor which captivated his friend even more than his brilliant talk. “Jens,” he said, making an effort to conquer his diffidence, “you have grown to be a great man, indeed. How could you expect me to recognize you?”
“A great man!” exclaimed Jens, expanding agreeably under his friend’s sincere flattery; “no, Fiddle-John, I am not a great man—that is, not yet, Fiddle-John. But I mean to become a great man before I die. In America, where I live, every man can become great if he only chooses to. But I thought, being young yet, that I could afford to spend a couple of months in opening to my countrymen the same road to fortune which is open to myself, before I settled down to tackle life in earnest. Fact is, Fiddle-John, as I said before, I have too much heart. My conscience would leave me no peace, whenever I thought of my poor countrymen who were toiling here at home for twenty-five or forty cents a day, and scarcely could keep body and soul together, while I could earn five and ten dollars a day as readily as I could blow my nose. I positively cried, Fiddle-John, cried like a girl, when I thought of you and your small chaps and of all the other poor fellows here in the valley who had such a hard time of it, tearing off their caps and bowing and scraping before the parson and the judge and all the big guns, while in America we step up to the President himself, wring his hand and say, ‘How are you, old chap? I’ll drop in and take pot-luck with you to-morrow, if you don’t happen to have company.’ And he, likely as not, will say to me, ‘Right welcome shall you be, Jim; bring a couple of good fellows along with you. We don’t stand on ceremony around the White House. Perhaps I may be able to hunt up a consulship or a foreign mission for you, if you should happen to be out of office and pressed for cash.’ Now, that’s what I call good manners, Fiddle-John, and the chances are ten to one that, if you call upon him with a note from me, he may set you up in a right fat office, where you may cock your head at parsons and judges and feel yourself as big as the very biggest.”
Fiddle-John listened with eager ears and open mouth to this alluring narrative. It did not occur to him to question the truth of what Jens said, for did not his appearance and his independent and dazzling demeanor plainly show that he was a great and prosperous man? And, moreover, how could he have undergone such a startling transformation in a few years, if it had not been true, as he said, that the President of the United States or some other mighty personage took an interest in him. Fiddle-John had often heard it said that in America all things were possible; and he had himself read letters from persons who here at home had been poor tenants or even day laborers, and who over there had become colonels, and merchants, and legislators. Therefore, he was not in the least surprised at the good luck which had overtaken his former friend. He was only surprised that the thought of going to America had never occurred to him before, and he made up his mind on the spot to sell his cow, his pig, and his three sheep, and take the first ship for New York. He could scarcely stop to bid Jens Skoug good-by, so eager was he to rush home and communicate his resolution to his wife and children. He foresaw that he would meet with opposition from Ingeborg; but he steeled his heart against all her entreaties and vowed to himself that this time he would have his own way. Was it not enough that she had once nearly ruined his life? Should he permit her again to snatch the chance of greatness away from him?
He was flushed and breathless when he reached his little cottage up under the mountain-wall. It had never looked so mean and miserable to him as it did at this moment. The walls were propped up on the north and west sides with long beams, and dry, brownish grass from last year grew in tufts along the roof-tree and drooped down over the eaves. His two sons, Alf and Truls, were playing bear with their little sister Karen, who was seven years old. But they rose hurriedly when they saw their father, and brushed the sand from the knees of their trousers. There was something in his bearing and in the expression of his face which vaguely alarmed them. He stooped no more in walking, but strode along proudly with uplifted head.
“Boys,” he cried, joyously, “run in and tell your mother, to-morrow we are going to America!” Ingeborg, who was just coming across the yard with a new-born lamb in her arms, paused in consternation, and gazed with a frightened expression at her husband.
“What has happened to you, John?” she asked, gently. “I thought that matter about the foreigner was settled long ago.”
“I tell you, no!” he shouted, wildly; “it is not settled. It never will be settled as long as there is breath left in my body. This time I mean to have my own way. Jens Skoug has come back from America, and he says that America is the place for me. I knew it all along, and whether you will follow me or not, I am going.”
“Follow you, John? Yes, if go you must, then I will follow you. But to America I will not go willingly, unless I know what we are to do there, and how we are to make our living. It is a long, long distance, John, across the great ocean; they speak a language there which neither you nor I understand.”
Fiddle-John turned impatiently on his heel, as if to say that he knew all that twaddle from of old; but Ingeborg, giving the lamb to Alf, went up to him, laid her hand on his arm, and said:
“You and I have lived together for so many years, John, and we love each other too well ever to be happy away from each other. Don’t let us speak harsh words. They rankle in the bosom and cause pain, long after they are spoken. If you must go to America, I will go with you. But I have a feeling that I shall never get there alive. I beg of you, don’t decide rashly and don’t believe all that Jens Skoug tells you. He was not a truthful child, and I doubt if he has grown up to be a good man. Let us say no more about it to-night. We will sleep on it, and see how it will look to us to-morrow.”
Fiddle-John was not a bad fellow; on the contrary, he was quite soft-hearted and easily moved. This wife of his had toiled in poverty and ill-health all her life long, and he had never offered to lift a finger to help her. Yet she loved him, accepting her lot meekly, and never uttering a word of reproach against him. He had never observed before how thin and worn she looked, how hollow her cheeks were, and how large her eyes. He felt for the first time in his life a pang of remorse. He had not been a good husband, he thought; not as good as he might have been. But then he was a great man, and great men were never the best of husbands. And when he reached America, and his greatness became generally recognized, and fortune began to smile upon him, then he would shower kindness upon her, and she would be rewarded a thousand-fold for all she had suffered. Surely, he would turn over a new leaf—in America.
Thus Fiddle-John consoled himself, when his conscience grew uneasy. When only they got to America, he reasoned, then everything would be right. He would have started without delay if Ingeborg’s health had not failed so rapidly that the doctor positively forbade her to think of travelling. The look of suffering and sweet forbearance upon her face seemed a perpetual reproach to Fiddle-John, and he roamed restlessly from one end of the valley to the other, playing, singing, and telling his stories, in order to earn money for the voyage, he said to his sons; but, in reality, to escape from the unspoken reproach of his wife’s countenance. But the day soon came when he needed no longer to flee from her presence. One bright spring day, just as the snow was melting, and the bare spots on the meadows steamed in the sun, Ingeborg closed her weary eyes forever; and a few days later she was laid to rest in the shadow of the old church down on the headland, where the song-thrush warbles through the brief Arctic summer night.
II.
Down in the valley the Easter bells were chiming; the bell-strokes trembled through the clear, sun-steeped air. There was commotion in the valley, too, in spite of the fact that it was Easter Sunday. Out in the middle of the fiord lay a huge black steamer, which panted and shrieked, as if it were in distress, and sent volumes of gray smoke out of its chimneys. Around about little black fragments of coal-dust were drizzling through the air and swimming on the water; and the gulls which kept whirling about the smoke-stacks were quite shocked when they caught the reflections of themselves in the tide; with wild screams they plunged into the fiord. They probably mistook themselves for crows.
The pier, which broke the line of the beach at the point of the headland, was thronged with men, women, and children. The men were talking earnestly together; most of the women were weeping, and the children were gazing impatiently toward the steamboat and tugging at their mother’s skirts. Some twenty or thirty boats, heavily laden with chests and boxes, lay at the end of the pier; and one after another, as it was filled with people, put off and was rowed out to the steamer. Only the old folk remained behind; with heavy hearts and tottering steps they walked up the sloping beach and stood at the roadside, straining their eyes to catch a last glimpse of the son or daughter, whom they were never to see again. Some flung themselves down in the sand and sobbed aloud; others stooped over the weeping ones and tried to console them.
At last there was but one little group left on the pier; and that was composed of Fiddle-John and his three children. Jens Skoug, the emigration agent, was standing in a boat, shouting to them to hurry, and the boys were scrambling down the slippery stairs leading to the water, while the father followed more deliberately, carrying the little girl in his arms.
There was a Babel of voices on board; and poor Fiddle-John and his sons, who had never heard such noise in their lives before, stood dazed and bewildered, and had scarcely presence of mind to get out of the way of the iron chains and pulleys which were hoisting on board enormous boxes of merchandise, horses, cattle, pigs, and a variety of other commodities. It was not until they found themselves stowed away in a dark corner of the steerage, upon a couple of shelves, by courtesy styled berths, which had been assigned to them, that they were able to realize where they were, and that they were about to leave the land of their fathers and plunge blindly into a wild and foreign world which they had scarcely in fancy explored.
The first day on board passed without any incident. The next day, they reached Hamburg, and were transferred to a much larger and more comfortable steamer, named the Ruckert, and before evening the low land of North Germany traced itself only as a misty line on the distant horizon. Night and day followed in their monotony; Russian Mennonites, Altenburg peasants, and all sorts of queer and outlandish-looking people passed in kaleidoscopic review before the eyes of the astonished Norsemen. It was the third day at sea, I think, when they had got somewhat accustomed to their novel surroundings, that a little incident occurred which was fraught with serious consequences to Fiddle-John’s family.
The gong had just sounded for dinner, and the emigrants were hurrying down-stairs with tin cups and bowls in their hands. The children were themselves hungry, and needed no persuasion to follow the general example. They unpacked their big tin cups, which looked like wash-basins, and took their seats at an interminably long table, while the stewards went around with buckets full of steaming soup, which they poured into each emigrant’s basin, as it was extended to them, by means of great iron dippers. Many of the Russians were either so hungry or so ill-mannered that they could not wait until their turn came, but rushed forward, clamoring for soup in hoarse, guttural tones; and one of the stewards, after having shouted to them in German to take their places at the tables, finally, by way of argument, gave one of them a blow on the head with his iron dipper. Then there arose a great commotion, and everybody supposed that the angry Mennonites would have attacked the offending steward. But instead of that, the crowd scattered and quietly took their places, as they had been commanded. They were an odd lot, those Mennonites, thought the Norse boys, who did not know that their religion forbade them to fight, and compelled them to pocket injuries without resentment.
Next to Alf, on the same bench, sat a swarthy boy, fourteen or fifteen years old, with yellow cheeks and large black eyes. He had a thin iron chain about his wrist and seemed every now and then to direct his attention to something under the table. Alf concluded that, in all probability, he had his bundle of clothes or his trunk hidden under his feet. But he was not long permitted to remain in this error. Just as the steward approached them and extended the long-handled dipper, filled with soup, a fierce growl was heard under the bench, and a half-grown black bear-cub rushed out and made a plunge for his legs. The frightened steward made a leap, which had the effect of upsetting the soup-pail over his assailant’s head.
A wild roar of pain followed, and everybody jumped on tables and benches to see the sport; while the Savoyard boy who owned the bear darted forward, his eyes flashing with anger, and hurled a flood of unintelligible imprecations at the knight of the soup-pail. There was a sudden change of tone, as he stooped down over his scalded and dripping pet, and, showering endearing names upon it, hugged it to his bosom.
The emigrants jeered and shouted, the waiters swore, and the purser, who had been summoned to restore order, elbowed his way ruthlessly through the crowd until he reached the author of the tumult.
“How do you dare, you insolent beggar, to bring a bear into the steerage?” he cried, seizing the boy by the collar, and shaking him. “Who permitted you to bring such a dangerous beast——”
His harangue was here suddenly interrupted by the bear, which calmly rose on its hind legs and, showing its teeth in an unpleasant manner, prepared to resent such disrespectful language. The purser took to his heels, while the steerage rang with jeers and laughter, and the Savoyard had all he could do to prevent his friend from pursuing him. The Norse boys, whose sympathy was entirely with the bear and his master, quite forgot their hunger in their excitement over the stirring incident; and when the Savoyard, feeling that the steerage was scarcely a safe place for him after what had occurred, mounted the stairs, dragging his bear after him, they could not resist the temptation to follow him at a respectful distance. But when they saw him crouching down behind the big smokestack and gazing timidly about him while he wiped the bear’s head and face with his sleeve, they could not conquer the impulse to make the acquaintance of so distinguished and interesting a personage. They accordingly sidled up slowly, holding their sister between them, and were soon face to face with the Savoyard.
“What is your name?” asked Truls with a boldness which raised him immensely in his brother’s esteem.
The Savoyard shook his head.
“What do people call you when they speak to you?” Truls repeated, raising his voice and drawing a step nearer.
“Non capisco. Je ne sais pas,” answered the boy in Italian and French, giving them the choice of the only two languages he knew.
“Capisco,” Truls went on confidently in his Norse dialect; “that is a very funny name. I am afraid you don’t understand me. It wasn’t the bear’s name I asked for; it was your own.”
The Savoyard shrugged his shoulders expressively, then poured out a torrent of speech which bewildered his Norse friends exceedingly. If the bear had opened its mouth and addressed them in the ursine language, it would not have succeeded in being more unintelligible.
“You are a very funny chap,” Truls remarked with a discouraged air. “Why don’t you talk like a Christian?”
He was determined to make no more advances to so irrational a creature, and was about to lead the way back to the dinner-table, when the arrival of the purser and the third officer of the ship again arrested his attention. The purser had evidently been hunting for the Savoyard; for, as he caught sight of him, he made an exclamation in German and called out to the third officer:
“There is the vagabond! Make him understand, please, that his bear must be shot and that he must get out of the way. He has taken out no ticket for his beast and we don’t take that kind of freight gratis!”
The third officer, who spoke French fluently, explained the purport of the purser’s remarks to the Savoyard, but in a gentle and kindly manner which almost deprived them of their cruel meaning. The boy, however, made no motion to stir, but remained calmly sitting, with his arm thrown over the bear’s neck and one hand playing with his paws.
The officer, seeing that his words had no effect, repeated his remark with greater emphasis. A startled look in the boy’s eyes gave evidence that he was beginning to comprehend. But yet he remained immovable.
“Get out of the way, I tell you!” cried the purser, drawing a revolver from his hip-pocket and pointing it at the bear’s head. “I have orders to kill this beast, and I mean to do it now. Quick, now, I don’t want to hurt you!”
The boy gazed for a moment with a fascinated stare at the muzzle of the terrible weapon, then sprang up and flung himself over the bear, covering it with his own body. The animal, not understanding what all this ado was about, took it to mean a romp, and began to lick his master’s face and to claw him with his limp paws.
“Well, I have given you fair warning!” the purser went on, excitedly, as he vainly tried to find an exposed vital spot on the bear at which he could fire. “If you don’t look out, you will have to take the consequences.” A large crowd had now gathered about them, and a loud grumble of displeasure made itself heard round about. The purser began to perceive that the sentiment was against him, and that it would scarcely be safe for him to execute his threat. Yet he found it inconsistent with his dignity to retire from the contest, and he was just pausing to deliberate when, all of a sudden, a small fist struck his wrist and the pistol flew out of his hand and dropped over the gunwale into the sea. A loud cheer broke from the crowd. The purser stood utterly discomfited, scarcely knowing whether he should be angry with his small assailant or laugh at him. He would, perhaps, have done the latter if the cheering of the people and their hostile attitude toward him had not roused his temper.
“Bravo, Tom Thumb!” they cried. “At him again! don’t be afraid of the brute because he has got brass buttons on his coat.”
“Good for you, Ashiepattle!” the Norwegians shouted; “go it again! We’ll stand by you!”
It was Truls, Fiddle-John’s son, who had thus suddenly become the hero of the hour; he had acted in the hot indignation of the moment and was now abashed and bewildered at the sensation he was making. He looked anxiously about for his brother and sister, and as soon as he caught sight of them, was about to make his escape when the purser seized him by the collar and bade him remain.
“You are a nice one, to be attacking your betters, who have never given you any provocation,” he said in German, which Truls, fortunately, did not understand. “I am going to take you to the captain, and he will have you punished for assault.”
He made a motion to drag the struggling boy away, but the crowd closed about him on all sides, and pressed in upon him with angry shouts and gestures. The third officer, who had so far taken no part in the proceedings, now stepped up to the purser and begged him to release the boy.
“Of course,” he said, “you are in the right; but if I were you, I would waive my right this time. It’s hardly worth while making a row about so small a matter; and it is always bad policy to go to the captain with squabbles and grievances, especially when they might so easily have been avoided. I assure you, you will only injure yourself by doing it.”
They talked for a minute together, while the ever-increasing throng surged hither and thither about them. Whether purposely or not, the irate purser, in the zeal of his argument, released his hold on Truls’ collar, and the liberated boy dodged away, as quickly as possible, and was soon lost in the crowd. The Savoyard and his bear had long before seized the opportunity to withdraw from the public gaze.
III.
The life on shipboard did not agree with Fiddle-John. Like a spoiled child, he was restless and unhappy when he was unnoticed. All day long he sat on the top of a coil of rope in the forecastle of the ship and sang. The forecastle was often deserted, and there were probably not many among the emigrants who would have been capable of judging whether his voice was in any way extraordinary. And yet, one there was who found an untold amount of comfort in listening to that clear, sweet tenor of Fiddle-John’s, and that one was the Savoyard boy. It had been his constant effort, since his encounter with the purser, to make himself as inconspicuous as possible, and it would have gratified him much if he had possessed some means of making the bear invisible. As the forecastle was the least visited portion of the ship, he had chosen to hide himself there behind the anchor-cable.
He trembled whenever anyone approached, and threw the end of the tarpaulin which covered the deck-freight over his friend, the bear. The only people whose company did not incommode him were Fiddle-John and his children, for whom he testified his devotion by smiles and gestures and all sorts of endearing Italian diminutives, which, on account of his caressing tones, even a dumb brute could not have failed to appreciate. After a long and exciting pantomime, Truls ascertained that his name was Annibale Petrucchio and that his bear gloried in the name of Garibaldi.
Both boys felt that they had made great progress in each other’s friendship when these facts had been established, and another hour of dumb show, intersprinkled with exclamations, resulted in a still more astonishing revelation, which was that Annibale and his friend slept every night on deck, because they feared to arouse once more the purser’s displeasure by invading the steerage. Sometimes Annibale curled himself up with Garibaldi within the coil of the anchor-cable—he jumped up, dragging the bear after him, to show the attitude in which they slept—but when it rained, or when the sea was high enough to sprinkle the deck, they both crept under the deck-freight tarpaulin, where they had made themselves a little house between two trunks which they had pushed apart. The only trouble was that the April nights were very cold—Annibale shivered all over to show how cold he was—and anchor-cables and deck-freight were not particularly soft to sleep upon.
As Alf and Truls became duly impressed with the unpleasantness of the Savoyard’s situation, they took counsel in order to ascertain how they might relieve his distress. But all the plans that were suggested were found to be risky, and night came before they arrived at a decision. The weather had been raw and blustery all the afternoon, and the officer on the bridge had been looking every minute uneasily at the falling barometer. After sunset the gale increased in violence and the ship pitched and rolled in the heavy sea. In the steerage there was a terrible commotion; women prayed and screamed and moaned, children of all ages joined in the chorus, the lamps swung forward and backward in their brass frames, and bottles, glasses, and loose crockery made a terrible racket, sliding to starboard and back again to port with every motion of the ship. The wind howled in the rigging, and every now and then a big wave swept across the deck and poured out through the scupper-holes.
Alf and Truls, who had been lying awake for hours listening to the hollow boom of the waves and the shrieking of the wind, conversed in a whisper about the poor Savoyard, who had to be on deck in that terrible weather, and they finally summoned courage to creep toward the ladder and slowly to mount it, tightly clutching each other’s hands. It was a risky undertaking, and their hearts stuck in their throats as they clung to the door-knob, hesitating whether they should open the door. Without knowing, however, they must have given the knob a twist; for suddenly the door swung open with a tremendous bang, and Truls was flung across the deck against the bulwarks with such force that for an instant he scarcely knew whether he had lighted on his head or his feet.
He picked himself up, however, without any serious damage, and as there was a momentary lull in the storm, he half rolled, half crept up toward the prow, where a couple of lanterns were swinging in the fore-royal stays. Nevertheless it was so dark that he could not discern an object ahead of him, and only groped his way along the bulwarks, until he stumbled upon a demoralized mass of rope which he knew to be the anchor-cable.
“Annibale!” he shouted at the top of his voice, “are you here?” But before he had time to receive a reply the ship plunged into a monstrous wave, which rose in a storm of spray and drenched the whole forecastle up to the mainmast. Truls, in his effort to keep his footing, tumbled forward and grabbed hold of something wet and hairy, which slid along with him for a couple of yards, and then was hauled back by some unseen force. The boy crawled along in the same direction and shouted once more, “Annibale! where are you?” And a voice close to his ear answered:
“Ah, Monsieur Truls, Garibaldi et moi, nous sommes à demi morts.”[11]
“Now, don’t jabber at me, Annibale,” Truls observed, making his voice heard above the wind; “but if you will come along with me, Alf and I will give you half of our berth; and Garibaldi can sleep at our feet.”
Whether Annibale understood the words or not, he could not fail to comprehend the friendly gestures which accompanied them. He eagerly seized Truls’ hand and they plunged bravely forward, but slipped on the wet deck, and the bear and the boys slid with great speed in the direction of the descent to the steerage. They were drenched to the skin and considerably bruised when, after several unsuccessful efforts, they seized the door-knob. Alf, as it turned out, feeling too ill to keep watch, had already preceded them to bed. Garibaldi, who seemed keenly conscious of his disgrace since the day he molested the purser, slunk along as meekly as possible, and only now and then shook his wet skin and coughed in a dispirited fashion. He was not as grateful, moreover, as might have been expected, when he was assigned his place on the straw at the foot of the berth, but gradually pushed himself upward until his nose nearly touched that of his master; whereupon he curled himself up comfortably and went to sleep. It was a very pretty sight to see the blond Norse boys and the swarthy Savoyard peacefully reposing on the same pillow, with the shaggy head of the bear between them, and the Savoyard half unconsciously clutching his pet in his embrace.
Toward morning the storm began to abate, and the dim light peeped in through the port-holes. The steerage was comparatively quiet. Fiddle-John arose and went on deck; a strange oppression had come over him. The dim, gray light, the all-enveloping dampness, and the incessant throbbing and clanking of the machinery wrought upon his sensitive soul, until he seemed in danger of going mad. The world seemed so vast and so empty! The waves heaved and wrestled in their gray monotony, until it made him dizzy to look at them. Merely to rid himself of this terrible oppression, Fiddle-John lifted up his voice and sang wildly against the wind; his beautiful tenor seemed to cut through the fog like a bright sword and to flash and ring under the sky. His soul expanded with his voice; the sun broke forth from the clouds, and he felt once more free and happy. He scarcely knew how long he sang; but when by chance he turned about, he saw to his surprise that a crowd of well-dressed cabin passengers had gathered about him. His three children stood holding one another’s hands, looking in astonishment at the fine ladies shivering in fur-trimmed cloaks, and wondered why their father was attracting so much attention.
“Charming!” “Wonderful!” “Magnificent!” exclaimed the fine people, when Fiddle-John had stopped singing; and a portly American gentleman, with gray side-whiskers, who seemed more enthusiastic than the rest, gave him a slap on his shoulder, and said that if he himself were ten years younger, he would undertake to make a fortune out of Fiddle-John, which, of course, was a very generous offer on his part. Jens Skoug, the emigration agent, translated the remark; and as the American seemed to have more to say to Fiddle-John, offered his services as interpreter.
“What is your trade?” asked the gentleman.
“I sing and play,” said Fiddle-John.
“But I mean, how do you make your living?” repeated his questioner.
“By singing and playing,” said Fiddle-John.
“You won’t make much of a living by that in America; people won’t understand you, unless you sing in English,” remarked the American.
It had actually never before occurred to Fiddle-John that his songs would be unintelligible in America. He had supposed that music appealed equally to all nations and needed no interpreter. The remark of his new friend, therefore, was a positive shock to him, and it took him fully a minute to recover from its effect.
“I will sing to the President of America,” he said, in an injured tone. “Jens Skoug, there, says that the President will make me a great man when he hears my voice.”
It did not suit Skoug’s convenience to translate this remark correctly; and he observed instead, with a confidential air, that Fiddle-John was a harmless monomaniac who had got it into his head that he wanted to sing to the President. The American was evidently amused at this, and said, with a laugh, that he feared the President was not so great an authority in music as in affairs of state.
Fiddle-John was extremely puzzled and a little distressed at the jocose manner of the American gentleman; it could scarcely be possible that he was making fun of him. But American ways were probably different from Norwegian ways, and he would therefore not be hasty in taking offence.
“I know a great many songs,” he said, with a determination to appear amiable; “and what is more, I can make songs about anything you choose.”
“Aha, you are a sort of poet—an improvisatore, as the Italians say. Now I begin to understand. Perhaps you can make a song about me,” suggested the American.
“Indeed I can!” cried the Norseman.
“Well, let us have it!” urged the other.
Fiddle-John never needed much urging to sing. He straightened himself up, flung back his head and was about to begin, when his son Truls, whose ears had been burning uncomfortably during the whole interview, seized his father’s hand and entreated him not to sing.
“Don’t sing to that man, father,” he said. “He is making sport of you. Please don’t! Both Alf and I are distressed to think that the gentleman should dare to speak to you as he does. He thinks——”
“Get out of the way, sonny! No one is talking to you,” interrupted Jens Skoug, pushing Truls rudely aside; but the boy, fired with sudden wrath, wheeled quickly around.
“It is you who have brought all this misery upon us,” he cried, excitedly. “I know you mean to desert us as soon as we get to New York, and I only wish I were big enough to give you the thrashing you deserve, now, on the spot.”
“Why, little chickens can crow like big roosters!” Jens Skoug exclaimed; “but if you don’t keep a civil tongue in your head,” he added, with a menacing scowl, “I will make you dance a jig to a very lively tune—the hazel tune; perhaps you may have heard of it.”
This was more than Truls could stand; and with clinched fists, a flushed face, and eyes blazing with anger, he rushed at the exasperating emigration agent. But the American, who thought that the fun had now gone far enough, seized the angry boy by the collar and restrained him. “Hold on, my little fellow!” he said; “it is time to stop for refreshments. You are a lively little customer for your years. I don’t know exactly what you are mad about, but I can assure you it isn’t worth fighting for. Now, simmer a little, and then cool down.”
During this scene, Fiddle-John had been standing irresolutely shifting his weight from one foot to the other and gazing with a bewildered air at Jens and Truls. He could not understand what had happened to arouse the anger of his son, and his excited words had scarcely furnished him with a clew to the mystery.
“Why—why—why, don’t you want me to sing, Truls?” he stammered, helplessly. “I am sure I sing as well as anybody, and need not be ashamed to be heard.”
“Oh, it isn’t that, father!” the son responded in a tone of tender consideration, which appealed strongly to the American. “You sing beautifully; but these people would not understand you—and—and—wait till we are alone, father; I will tell you what I mean.”
It was the manner, rather than the words, of the boy which gave the stranger an insight into the relations which existed between him and his father; and what he saw, and still more what he inferred, interested him greatly. There was a diffidence in Truls’ tone, and at the same time an air of protectorship, which, in one of his years, was quite touching. The American could not help admiring his spirited behavior, and he only wished he could have told him how far he was from wishing to humiliate either him or his father. But he had lost confidence in Mr. Skoug as an interpreter, and he saw no one else who, for the moment, could take that gentleman’s place. He therefore put his hand caressingly on the boy’s head and, trusting to his intuition rather than his knowledge of English, said:
“If you should ever happen to need a friend in the United States, you must remember to come to me. My name is Alexander Tenney, and I live in New York. Here is my card, with my address upon it.”
He gave Fiddle-John and his son each a friendly nod and sauntered away toward a group of ladies who were seated in their steamer-chairs, conversing with the captain about the state of the weather.
IV.
It was a beautiful sunny morning in May that the steamer cast anchor in the bay of New York. Fiddle-John and his children and a thousand other poorly clad people from all parts of the world were carried by little steam-tugs to a large building by the water, where there was a babel of noise and confusion. Everybody was shouting at the top of his voice; children were crying, women hunting for their husbands, husbands hunting for their baggage; policemen were pushing back the crowd of screaming hotel-runners who were besieging the doors, and an official, standing on the top of a barrel, was yelling instructions to the emigrants in half a dozen different languages.
Fiddle-John, to whom this spectacle was positively terrifying, could do nothing but stare about him in a hopeless and dazed manner, while he pressed his violin-case tightly in his arms and allowed himself to be pushed hither and thither by the surging motion of the crowd. He was finally pushed up to a gate, where an official sat writing at a desk.
“How old are you?” asked the official, or, rather, the interpreter, who was standing at his elbow.
“Thirty-five years,” said Fiddle-John; but a vague alarm took possession of him at the question, and his heart began to beat uneasily.
“What is your occupation?”
“Occupation? Well, I sing. I am a singer.”
“A singing-teacher? Is that what you are?”
“No, I don’t teach.”
“What do you do, then, for a living? Perhaps you are a sort of theatrical chap—a play-actor?”
Fiddle-John looked greatly mystified; he had never heard of such a thing as a theatre in all his life, and the word “actor” was not found in his vocabulary. Nevertheless, he thought it best to keep on good terms with the great official, and he therefore made one more effort to explain the nature of his occupation.
“If you will pardon my boldness,” he began, with a quaking voice, “I may say that I am a kind of poet—a minstrel——”
“Aha, that’s what you are!” roared the official, with a laugh, as if he had at last found the solution of the problem; “you are a negro-minstrel, an end-man, clog-dancer, and lively kind of a chap generally.”
Fiddle-John stood aghast; he was not a combative character, but the recent scene with the American gentleman on shipboard had aroused his suspicion, and the conclusion now suddenly flashed upon him that the official was making fun of him. The blood mounted to his head and his whole frame trembled.
“How dare you mock me?” he cried, passionately; “how dare you call me a negro? Don’t you see with your own eyes that I am as white as you are?”
“Keep a civil tongue in your head, now, or I’ll have you arrested on the spot,” the other replied, coolly. “I can’t afford to waste my time on you. So far as I can learn, you are a beggar who walks about in the street, singing. Now, that kind of thing won’t go down over here; and you had better not try it. How much money have you?”
“I haven’t any money.”
“And what is your destination? Where do you intend to go?”
“I am going to see the American President, and sing to him.”
“Sing to the President! Well, I expected as much. Why, my good friend, it seems you are a lunatic as well as a beggar. I shall send you to the Island, and you will be returned by the next steamer to Norway. It is only able-bodied, self-supporting emigrants we receive here, not street-singers and crazy people!”
The poor Norseman stood as if riveted to the spot. A sudden faintness came over him, and he felt as if he were going to sink into the ground. He made desperate attempts to speak, but his words stuck in his throat and he could not utter a sound. A policeman was summoned and he was unceremoniously hustled through the crowd and forced to board a small steam-tug, where, with three other forlorn and miserable-looking individuals, he was locked up in a dirty and ill-smelling cabin. All this had been done so quickly that he scarcely had time to realize what was happening to him. But now the thought of his three children came over him with terrible force, and a sickening sense of his helplessness took possession of him. In one moment the blood throbbed in his face and temples, and he burned with heat and indignation; in the next, the thought of what was to become of his dear ones, alone and friendless as they were, in a foreign land, suddenly drove the blood away from his cheeks and he shivered with dread. He was in the midst of these tormenting fancies, when the tug gave a couple of shrill whistles and steamed through the harbor toward an island covered with gray, dismal-looking stone buildings, the very sight of which filled Fiddle-John’s breast with fear.
The children, in the meanwhile, had an experience hardly less discouraging. They had seen their father led away by a policeman, and had shouted to him with all their might; but their voices had been drowned in the general confusion, and in spite of all their efforts they had not been able to make their way to him through the dense throng. They searched for hours, but could find no trace of him. Being afraid of the man at the desk, who had been so severe with their father, they hit upon the plan of slipping through the gate in the train of a German family which had so many children that it seemed hopeless to count them. This scheme succeeded admirably, and toward evening they found themselves in a broad square planted with trees and budding shrubs. They still had some hope of finding their father, thinking that perhaps his detention would merely be temporary; and they sat upon the benches or roamed along the Battery esplanade with a miserable feeling of loneliness gnawing at their hearts. They were hungry, but they did not know where to turn to obtain bread. The world seemed so vast and strange and bewildering that it gave one a headache only to look at it. To ears accustomed only to the murmur of the pines in the summer night and the song of birds and the river’s monotonous roar, the huge city, with its varied noises and its incessant, deafening rattle of wheels over stone pavements, seemed overwhelming and terrible.
Only Truls, who had a spirit less sensitive and less easily daunted than his brother and sister, could summon courage to think—to devise a way, if possible, out of their perplexities. He carefully investigated first his own pockets, then his brother’s, in the hope of finding something that might be exchangeable for a loaf of bread. But he could find nothing except a couple of buttons, some curious snail-shells, and a folding knife, the blades of which had been sharpened until there was scarcely anything left of them. After a few minutes’ meditation, he resolved, although with an aching heart, to part with his valuable treasures; and he took Karen by one hand and Alf by the other, and led the way through the Battery Park toward Greenwich Street, where he hoped to find a baker’s shop.
They had advanced but a short distance, however, when they caught sight of their friend Annibale, who was sitting on a bench, swinging his legs with an air of deep dejection. His eyes lighted up a little when he recognized Truls; he jumped up and, pointing to something resembling a large muff under the bench, exclaimed, in a tearful voice:
“Garibaldi is very sick. Garibaldi will die. He has been ill a long time; he will not stand up any more. He hangs his head like this.”
Annibale here demonstrated, with pathetic absurdity, the pitiful manner in which the little bear hung his head. There could be no doubt; it was a serious case. Truls was especially conscious of this, after having stooped down and noted Garibaldi’s symptoms. His eyes were much inflamed, his nose was hot, and he frothed slightly at the corners of his mouth. Yes, it was plain that Garibaldi was going to die.
Alf and Truls nearly forgot their hunger and their distress at the thought of this great calamity. By signs and gestures, they persuaded Annibale to seek lodgings where his pet might receive proper care and perhaps stand some chance of recovering. This seemed sound advice, and Annibale was not slow in following it, when once he understood it. But it was a very sad march; for Garibaldi refused to move, and the three boys had to carry him as best they could.
A lodging-house was finally found where supper and bed could be procured for twenty cents; and though neither was particularly inviting, the boys were too hungry and tired to be fastidious. The Savoyard fortunately had a little money, which he was very willing to share with his Norse friends, as soon as he had gained an inkling of the day’s adventures. Moreover, he had relatives in the city, and knew the addresses of many Italian friends. He therefore had no fear of suffering want, and, as he asserted in his own jargon, could well afford to be generous.
The boys and the bear slept in a little square box of a room in which there were two beds, while a kind-hearted servant carried weary little Karen to her own apartment. Truls, out of gratitude to Annibale, offered to watch over the bear; but, unhappily, his gratitude was not lively enough to keep him awake, though he struggled bravely to keep his eyes open. Toward midnight his head sank slowly down upon Garibaldi’s back, and when the daylight peeped in through the dusty window-panes he was yet sleeping peacefully. The sunbeams crept, inch by inch, across the floor, until they lighted on Truls’ chin, then climbed up to his nose and reached his eyes. Then he awoke with a pang, sprang up, and stared confusedly about him.
Suddenly his eyes fell upon Garibaldi, who lay immovable at the foot of the bed; he stooped down and touched him. The poor bear was stone cold! It had died quietly in the night. Truls, with a dim notion that Garibaldi’s death was due to his own lack of watchfulness, made haste to rouse his friend and explain to him, with tears of grief and remorse, that he had, without meaning to do it, used Garibaldi as a pillow, and that the poor animal had probably died in consequence. Annibale, however, showed no disposition to reproach Truls, but, leaping out of bed with a frightened face, flung himself down over the bear, hugged him, and wept over him, overwhelming him with caresses and endearing names. But it was all in vain. Garibaldi was, and remained, dead. He had caught a violent cold during the night of the storm at sea, from which he had never recovered.
Although it was yet early in the morning, all the city seemed to be awake and to be surging and roaring outside of the windows like a storm-beaten sea. Stage-coaches, carriages, and enormous drays laden with bales and barrels and boxes, were pouring in steady streams up and down the street; people of all sorts and conditions were hurrying hither and thither; and out in the harbor, but a stone’s throw distant, there was a forest of masts, and big and little steam-boats rushed shrieking in all directions. It seemed like tempting Providence to venture out into this wild turmoil, and Truls implored Annibale not to risk it, when he perceived that the latter was bent upon some such dangerous expedition.
Annibale, however, had seen great cities before, and gave no heed to his companion’s fear, but tore himself away, promising to return before noon. With a painful fascination Truls stood watching him from the window, following his lithe and dexterous motions as he wound himself through the crowd and dodged the huge wheels and wagon-poles, as they seemed on the point of knocking him down. When at last the Savoyard vanished around a street-corner, and Truls was about to relapse into his sad meditations, the kind-hearted servant-girl caused a sensation by entering with Karen and a tray, upon which were three pieces of bread and three cups of coffee. Truls then awakened his brother, who had slept soundly through the recent excitement, and the three had quite a pleasant meal, considering their forlorn condition.
They covered Garibaldi with a blanket. He had had a hard life of it on board the steamer, and had suffered much. Now his career was finished. At least, so Alf and Truls supposed, until a very extraordinary thing happened.
They had finished their breakfast some little time, when the door opened and Annibale entered with a little, smoky, and shrivelled-up Italian. He was Annibale’s uncle; his name was Giacomo Bianchi, and by trade he was a tobacconist. When he talked he used his arms, legs, eyes, and mouth, all with equal vigor. Fiddle-John’s children stood and gazed at him in undisguised wonder; they had never in all their lives seen anything so lively.
“Ecco!” he cried, pointing excitedly first to the dead bear and then to Truls; “the fit is perfect. He is of the same height, and will do perfectly well. If he has ordinary intelligence, and not too much of it, he can act the bear as well as if he were born one. I will prepare the skin for you, and stuff it just enough to fit his figure. Then you can make money like the sands of the sea. I have a small hand-organ at home, and a tambourine which that vagabond Gregorio left me for a debt. You give me half of what you earn, and I will lend you all these things. You will become a rich man before you die. The bigger boy can play the hand-organ, the little girl can strike the tambourine, and you yourself lead the bear and make him dance. Behold, my son, your fortune is made. Ecco, I have spoken!”
Giacomo’s dark eyes flashed with enthusiasm as he unfolded this glorious scheme, and he flourished his stick so violently in the direction of Karen that she grew frightened and began to cry. Her brothers, too, viewed the excitable little man with suspicion, and listened in no friendly spirit to his unintelligible talk. To their guileless Norse minds his gestures seemed at first to indicate insanity, but after awhile they concluded that, for some reason, he was angry at their sister. Then they clinched their fists in their pockets and made themselves ready to pounce upon him, the very moment he ventured to touch her.
His apparent wrath suddenly left him, however, and he came up to shake hands with each of them, smiling, and nodding his shaggy head with extreme affability. Still they could not quite conquer their distrust of him, and it required a long and lively pantomime to induce them to accompany him to his own dwelling. At last they yielded, because they knew of nothing else to do. Garibaldi was put into a bag, and Giacomo and the boys, taking each a corner, carried him easily. First they went to Castle Garden to inquire for their father, but there was no one there who knew anything about him. Another steamer had just come in with over eleven hundred Polish Jews, and the officials were too busy to give heed to the questions of the strange-looking boys who talked a strange-sounding language. All their attempts to get possession of the baggage were also unavailing; and with heavy hearts they plodded along together with the Italian and Garibaldi, winding their way through a labyrinth of dirty streets, until they reached a little, ill-smelling bird-shop in Canal Street.
Here, too, there was a bedlam of noise, and the young Norsemen remained standing in the middle of the floor, staring about them in helpless bewilderment. Two great blue-and-yellow macaws were shrieking overhead, an ancient and wise-looking cockatoo was apparently scolding them for their undignified behavior, and uncounted paroquets, pigeons, and canary-birds were chirping, cooing, and screaming in a confused chorus which would have racked the nerves of a mummy. The barking of a number of dogs, which seemed to object to the limited area of their cages, added to the uproar; and it was a great relief to the whole juvenile company when Giacomo invited them up-stairs, where he had his own personal domicile.
The bird-store, according to Annibale’s assertion, was a source of enormous revenue, but belonged to his other uncle, Matteo, who was a citizen of much weight and influence in the Italian colony. This great man, however, it was understood, had more important matters to attend to, and left the business in charge of his humbler brother, Giacomo. A vague impression of these facts Annibale had managed to communicate to his friends, in spite of the linguistic difficulties under which he labored; and the Norse boys, who during the two weeks on the steamship had learned the Italian names for many common things and ideas, were pleasantly surprised at the readiness with which they comprehended the mixture of signs, gestures, and words which constituted Annibale’s medium of communication.
Uncle Giacomo’s rooms proved much more agreeable than the shop below. The noise of the birds penetrated the floor only as a subdued confusion of sounds, and did not interfere with conversation. On a little low table at the window there was a multitude of small, sharp tools, and an array of bottles which emitted strong but not unpleasant odors. Some of them had feathers sticking through their stoppers, and others were labelled “Poison” in big red letters. About the walls there were rows of shelves, upon which stood bright-colored birds, perching upon twigs, as if on the point of taking flight, owls with big yellow eyes and a dignified sullenness of expression, hawks with wings outspread, swooping down upon unseen, unsuspicious rabbits; and, besides, there were little pet dogs and birds, whose skins had been preserved by the taxidermist’s art for sorrowing owners.
All these objects the boys and Karen found highly entertaining, and Uncle Giacomo, who was bent upon making a good impression, allowed them to take down and examine anything that struck their fancy. The work of skinning poor Garibaldi also served to occupy their minds, and thus the forenoon passed rapidly until it was time to sit down to dinner. They did not sit down, however, for their dinner consisted only of bread and milk, and that could be eaten just as well standing. In the afternoon they were allowed to fetch up some rabbits and guinea-pigs from the store, and when they had played with them for a couple of hours, Uncle Giacomo brought them a green parrot that could talk and scold in both English and Italian. Neither Alf nor Truls nor Karen understood its talk; but, for all that, it entertained them, and served for a time to keep their minds from dwelling on their misfortunes. They scarcely knew what was to become of them; the world seemed so vast and so pitiless, and they themselves such a very small part of it. They thought with flutterings of hope and fear of their father, and determined never to abandon their search for him until they should find him.
Their fate seemed strange and incomprehensible. But a few weeks ago they were living happily in their quiet Norse home, in the little cottage under the mountain-wall. Now they were flung out, helpless and alone, into a huge whirlpool of foreign life; their mother, whom they had loved more than anyone else in the whole world, was dead, and their father was wandering about, no one knew where, vainly seeking them, perhaps, and not knowing whither to turn. Indeed, much can happen in two short weeks. If they had but known what was to befall them before they left their happy home! Oh, if they had but known!