Part 16

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.