Splash! came the rain upon his face, and the cold breath of the night and storm.
"Great Cæsar! boys, it's raining!"
There wasn't much doubt of that fact. And as stream after stream began to pour through the roof there was a sudden resurrection among the white mummies stretched upon the spruce boughs. Frank glanced around, and then made another equally wise observation:
"This old shanty's mighty leaky!"
As the ground covered by the mansion thus disrespectfully alluded to was about eight feet by twelve, and there were at that particular moment sixteen different streams of water pouring down upon their heads, the rest had already discovered the fact, and there was a hasty consultation.
"Can't we stop up the holes?"
"Nothing to do it with!" said Harry Eveleth mournfully. "And I've been sitting in a puddle for the last two minutes!"
Ramon jumped. A waterspout had shot down the back of his neck. "We mus' go out of zis! We soon shall be wetter; we can run to ze horse's house!"
"Good for you, Havana! your head's solid!" sang out Charlie Brown heartily. "Now for it! Put your blankets over your heads, woman-fashion, and travel like a blue streak; and—Jupiter Pluvius! how cold this rain is!" His words ended in an involuntary chatter.
There was a momentary hesitation; then with a sigh they ducked under the blankets and dashed out into the darkness and the rain which fell hissing through the tossing limbs of the trees, and, stumbling over the fence with a crash of breaking rails, they ran violently down a steep place without the least idea of the direction, till they all brought up in a heap in the bottom of a ditch, with some six inches of water for company! However, within a few rods was the "horse's house." They scrambled out and ran for it, their once white blankets streaming with muddy water, chilled through and through with the cutting wind. They reached it, crowded in, felt blindly around in the dark, and then came a cry of dismay:
"The horse is gone!"
They looked at each other in silence. It was too dark in there to distinguish a single feature, so they did not get much comfort from that. For a full minute not a word was spoken. Then Frank Hapgood drew a long breath and then ejaculated:
"Well, I'm blessed!"
"So ze horse is stole by ze ladrones," remarked Ramon philosophically. "How we shall pay!"
"Pay! no; the beast untied the knot and walked home, which is what we shall have to do—and it's raining brickbats!" snapped Harry, as a gust of hail crashed upon the roof. "He did that once before."
Somehow their spirits rose a little at that; the indefiniteness of the animal's fate had alarmed some of them, and pocket money was scanty. They even cracked a feeble joke or two, in a half-hearted way, but the steady splash and spatter of the rain chilled the fun all out of it, and wet as they were, they huddled together among a lot of straw and blankets until they were quite comfortably warm. They were even dozing when Charlie Brown suddenly pointed to the doorway with a husky hurrah. It was the gray light of a cold November dawn.
* * *
Father had some peculiar ideas when he built our house, and the dining-room juts out from the rest like a great bay-window—a room with three sides of glass. We were at breakfast, discussing buckwheats diligently, when father glanced down the roadway and began to laugh.
We turned, looked, and then rushed to the great windows in a crowd. Up the drive with slow and solemn tread, swaying under the gale, pelted with rain, came the valiant stampeders, a procession of blanket-mantled figures in dingy white, the water dripping from their coverings in streams, squashing and churning in their boots as they splashed indifferently onward through mud or grass alike; such miserable-looking rats!
Frank looked up with a wan attempt at a smile as he passed under the windows and saw the rows of grinning faces looking down, but the rest kept their eyes fixed upon the ground.
Father went out upon the piazza. "Good-morning, boys! out for a constitutional? nothing better to get up an appetite," he said with a cheerful smile.
Frank laughed; he really couldn't help it, although a moment before he had been mad with himself, the horse, the rain, and the world in general. As they looked at each other sheepishly out of the corner of their eyes the rest took it in, and began to grin at the ludicrous sight of themselves, and for a few minutes very great was the hilarity.
"That's right; that's right. A hearty laugh is good medicine! but you will need something more, so in with you, quick!"
And before they knew it, they were running the gauntlet of the rest of us, and scudding for the dormitory, from whence came presently a sound as of mighty rubbing, and the flavor of Jamaica ginger. But they had to stay in bed all day, to their great disgust, and "ginger" was a dangerous word to mention for weeks after; and for two whole terms not one of those boys were in any of the scrapes that were going on. "They had been there!" they said, with a rueful smile, which we could appreciate. As father used to say, "There's nothing like learning the logical sequence of consequences!" And they had a big washing bill that week.
* * *
THE DOUGHNUT BAIT.
A schoolboy a few weeks since told me of an amusing encounter that he and his brother had just had with a bear. It was at Thanksgiving time, and they were enjoying the few days' vacation in hunting in the Maine woods. The locality, to be exact, was the north side of Roach River, about half-way from the first pond to where the stream empties into Moosehead Lake.
Near a deserted log hut, known as "McPheter's Camp," they had discovered signs of a bear—his tracks, and the spot where he had lain down among the tall dead grasses.
"Let's stay here all night and watch for him," said Willie—Willie was the one who related the adventure to me.
"That wouldn't be right; for they're looking for us at home," replied his brother Dick to this somewhat tempting invitation. "Besides there might not come a bear here again for a week."
"Well, let's rest here a few minutes anyway," said Willie.
Opposite the door of the hut was its one window, the glass so covered with cobwebs that very little light came through. It was dark enough in there for a bear's den—he might, in fact, be in there. But flinging the door wide open, the boys ventured in. There was a visible movement at the window, but it proved to be only three or four great, gray spiders hurrying to their coverts from the unwonted light.
"What's this, Dick?" and Will kicked a tangled mass of iron from a corner into the sunshine.
Dick eyed it a moment. "Aha—it's a bear trap," said he.
"Well, we will catch him, now," said Will triumphantly.
"The old thing's too rusty and weak," Dick pronounced finally, after examining it. "'Twouldn't hold a bear."
"Oh, let's just set it, anyhow, and try," coaxed Will.
After repeated efforts, in which Will got caught himself—or, rather, his boot—they got the huge iron jaws wide open, and the trencher in place.
"Next thing we must shoot something for bait," said Will.
"I really think we haven't time, not to-night, Will," said Dick. "See! it's almost sunset, and we are two miles from home through the woods."
"Well, then, I've got two doughnuts left. Let's put them on."
"Very well," laughed Dick, good-naturedly, "if you can wait for your supper."
So the trap, with a doughnut tied to the trencher, was placed a few feet just outside the cabin where any one within could plainly see it from the window. The chain was made fast, and the other doughnut broken to bits, and scattered about.
The next morning the boys were early on the tramp, in order to visit a shallow pond some three miles eastward, where they expected to find moose. After tiptoing about and impatiently watching the shores till afternoon, they did see a moose; but before they were within range, he turned to run.
"Fire, Will!" shouted Dick.
The report of two guns echoed from the woods about, while the moose with a sudden bound or two, disappeared among the trees. They could hear the great creature crashing through the
woods, and they hurried on in pursuit. After going about a mile they lost track of him, and they gave it up as neither had detected any token that the animal was hurt.
The chase had led them near a trail that passed the McPheter's camp; and they jokingly turned that way to see if anything had happened there.
"If that doughnut isn't gone, I'm going to eat it," murmured Will. "I'm awful hungry."
"I doubt that the birds and squirrels have left any till this time," said Dick.
"A large bird, or a gray squirrel would get caught, if they touched it, wouldn't they?" questioned Will hopefully.
"Perhaps—if the old trap wasn't so rusty—but hush—there's the camp. Supposing we keep behind it and go in until we see if there's anything in the trap."
They opened the door softly, and moved lightly in and toward the window. The first glance gave them a start. There was a big bear sitting bolt upright, with his forepaws hanging, right before the window. He had evidently heard the sound of their approach, and was looking around for them. Dick gave one long, but weary look. Then he shouted:
"All right, Will. He's caught! The doughnut did it!"
For a moment the boys stood looking out of the window, and the bear sat looking in. It was too much for Bruin—that gaze of exultant victory. He struggled a moment with the trap, then, with one vigorous leap, he cleared himself and went head and shoulders into that window.
Dick sprang for a hole in the low roof, and Will dashed out of the door. He had just time to shut it behind him before the bear came bumping against it.
It were hard to say who was hunter and who was hunted just then. Will was outside, but virtually the bear's captive, as he stood braced back against the door. Dick was creeping about on the rotten, creaking roof. The bear was inside, vigorously snuffing about for his enemies. He repeatedly tried the door, but it failed to open. He growled up the hole in the roof at Dick, but couldn't reach him. There they were, three very uncomfortable parties.
At last the boys heard the sound of rattling glass again; evidently the bear was going to try the hunt outside. Will made a frantic endeavor to open the door, but he had pushed so hard that now it stuck. He got it open at last, and peeped in, just at the instant when the bear came round the corner.
This was the situation now: Will was looking in after the bear, the bear had come round after Will, and Dick, on the roof, was trying to get a good sight at the bear without slipping off. By holding to the hole in the roof with his foot, he found himself able to peep over the eaves; and when the bear turned the corner, he with lucky aim, and plucky quickness put a moose-charge into the back of the creature's head.
Will turned and was putting his gun out to fire, just as Dick dropped down through the roof. But the bear lay still. Dick's shot had finished him.
There was, of course, great rejoicing between the two young hunters. They started a fire, then took off Bruin's skin; and soon some most delicious bearsteaks were broiling on the coals.
"I don't miss that doughnut at all, somehow," said Will as they sat at dinner.
* * *
A REAL HAPPENING.
Old Beppo and Nina, his wife, with their two boys, lived in one of those little excavations which everybody who has visited Naples will remember. I hardly know what to call them, for they certainly do not deserve the name of dwellings. They are little holes dug in the sandy hillsides just outside the busy city, where the poor people crawl in at night, and where they keep their little belongings by day. The poor of Naples live out of doors, as indeed the poor people all through Southern Italy do; and it does not seem half as hard to be poor in Italy as elsewhere. The beautiful, clear, blue sky overhead, and the soft, warm earth to sit and lie upon, with the delicious air to breathe, and the great Duomos always open to them where they can go at any hour of the day and feel that they have just as much right as kings and princes—who wonders that they are contented, lazy and dreamy? Give a Neapolitan beggar macaroni and sunshine, and he will sit and dream away the hours with no thought or care of what will come to-morrow. He has just energy to whine—"Poverino Signorina"—and it matters little whether his extended hand is filled with centismi or not; according as it may be, he calls upon the "Sanctissmi Virgina" to bless or curse you and sinks away into dreamy content till the next stranger approaches. Not so with Old Beppo; he tugged all day grinding out dolorous tunes from his old organ, and whether people paid him for grinding, or paid him to stop grinding, all the same Old Beppo thought he was earning an honest living.
Everybody in the little neighborhood of Lazzaroni knew and loved Old Beppo—why he was always called Old Beppo, I never knew, unless it was because his home-life had given him a subdued, downcast look, and his shoulders were more rounded and bent than even his heavy organ would have made them if he could have had a little comfort and cheer in the poor place he called home. Nina was a peevish, querulous wife—always finding fault, and never satisfied with Beppo's earnings; true, it was little enough he brought at night after trudging all day with his hand-organ, and as he approached the little rookery at the end of the day his steps grew languid and heavy, for he knew his only welcome would be Nina's grumbling, fretful greeting; and poor Old Beppo, after unstrapping his burden and eating his poor meal of macaroni, found rest, not on the little seat outside his own door with his wife and children, but on the sand-bank, or on a neighbor's doorseat where he could smoke his pipe in peace beyond the sound of Nina's croaking, scolding voice. The two boys were like their mother, and Beppo found little comfort in them, so it must be confessed that when in the summer of 1860 Nina was called away to a country where Old Beppo hoped she would not find so much to scold about, his grief was not inconsolable, and a year later he found a more congenial companion in a trim, pretty little widow whose husband was taken off by the same scourge that carried Nina away. Italia had one little boy who was, like his mother, amiable and pretty, with the beautiful great black eyes of a true Italian, and all the fascinating ways of a pretty child of nature. He might have been used for a model of Italian child-beauty.
Old Beppo spent two peaceful and happy years with Italia, and then came again the summer pestilence and poor Italia was one of the victims. Little Dino was heartbroken at the loss of his mother, and Old Beppo, after trying in vain to console the little boy, decided to take him, with the two half-brothers, to America, as much perhaps to change the scene for little Dino as to better his condition in our land of hope and promise. Dino played the violin and accompanied Old Beppo in his wanderings over the country for a time, until the old man became restless and unhappy and longed for his native air. Dino had recovered his childish spirits, and was happy in the freedom of our free sunny summer weather where he had plenty to eat, and was petted and pampered because of his pretty little ways and his bright black eyes. But Old Beppo could not live away from his "beautiful Italy," and as soon as he gathered pennies enough, he took passage for Naples and left the three boys in America.
The two older boys were to look after little Dino and to give him such care as he needed. True to their coarse nature and instincts, they began, as soon as their father had left, to send Dino out with his violin to earn not only his own bread but theirs; for they knew that his attractive little face and winsome manners would win for them more pennies than they could for themselves. This was true, but sometimes the pennies failed, and the days were dull, and people did not care for Dino's music; and then the brothers beat him and ill-treated him until he could endure it no longer.
The summer was passing; the days were becoming cool, and the nights damp and chilly, and oftentimes little Dino, rather than go to his brothers where he was sure to meet with cruel treatment, would creep under an old cart or under some door-steps and spend the night. This he did not complain of until the nights grew frosty, and the poor little fellow found himself stiff and cold when morning came; and then with the tears streaming down his cheeks he longed for "My Italy. I 'fraid I freeze to death, I want my mother," he said pitifully.
; His brothers kept track of him and lost no opportunity to illtreat him, and he resolved to run away from Boston and go to some place where they could not find him. Accordingly one rainy, chilly night in November, he took the cars and started to go—he knew not where, but anywhere beyond the knowledge of the brothers who had whipped him until he bore the marks all over his little body. Crouched down in a corner of the cars, Dino was counting his pennies when the conductor found him and asked in not the pleasantest tones where he wished to go.
Of course he had no idea how much money it took to ride in the cars even a short distance; so he gave the conductor all the pennies he had, and said, "I want to go so far."
LITTLE DINO AT THE FAIR.
It was on this dismal, chilly November night that little Dino found himself in one of the suburban towns of Boston, where some young ladies were holding a little sale for the benefit of a Home for Orphan Children in their neighborhood. The day being so unpropitious, visitors had been few and sales very slow. The young people, with rueful faces, were talking in the twilight of their disappointed hopes, and wondering if the evening would bring customers for the little articles they had spent all their leisure summer hours upon, in the hope of adding a large sum to the depleted treasury of the town, when suddenly a child's voice was heard at the door, "Me want to play me fiddle for some supper."
The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories Page 12
