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Outpost, or Dora Darling and Little Sunshine, a fiction by Jane Goodwin Austin |
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CHAPTER XVI - BEGINNING A NEW LIFE |
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_ As if to favor Giovanni's plot, it chanced, that, in the morning of the next day, Mrs. Ginniss received a sudden summons to the bedside of Ann Dolan, the friend whose advice had led to Teddy's being placed in his present situation. The messenger had reported that Ann was "very bad wid her heart, an' the life was knocked out intirely, sure:" and Mrs. Ginniss felt herself bound to hasten to the help of her friend, should she still be alive; or to see that she was "waked dacent" if dead. Just as she was wondering if it was best to take Cherry with her, or to leave her locked up alone until her return, Giovanni appeared at the door, his face disposed in its most winning smile, and his manner as respectful as if he had been addressing the marchésa who had been his own and his daughter's patron. "Will my good neighbor allow that the little girl go for a walk with me this fine morning?" asked he. "I would like to show her the flowers and the swans in the gardens of the city." "An' will you take the monkey an' the grind-orgin the day?" asked Mrs. Ginniss doubtfully. "Indeed, no! I go to a walk to enjoy the fine time, and to see the flowers and the swans," explained Giovanni in his best English, and with a proportion of bows and smiles; while Cherry stood by, her little face full of surprise and mystery, not unmingled with a little shame as she felt that her good mammy was being deceived and misled by the wily Italian. "Faith, thin, Mr. Jovarny, it's very perlite ye are iver an' always; but I don't jist feel aisy wid the child out uv my sight. Mabbe she'd better wait till night, when Teddy can take her out." "Oh, let me go, mammy! I want to go with 'Varny, and I'll bring you"-- "Yes; we'll get the pretty flowers to bring to mammy, she would say," interrupted the Italian hastily; and Mrs. Ginniss, looking down at the little anxious face and pleading eyes, found her better judgment suddenly converted into a desire to please her little darling at any rate, and to see her smile again in her own sunny fashion. "Sure, an' ye shall go, 'vourneen, if it's that bad ye're wantin' it," said she, stooping to take the child in her arms; and, as Cherry kissed her again and again, she added,-- "An' it's well ye don't ask the heart out uv me body; for it's inter yer hand I'd have to give it, colleen bawn." Giovanni looked on, his half-shut, black eyes glittering, and a wily smile wrinkling his sallow cheek. "Every one has his day," muttered he in Italian, "Your's to-day, good woman; mine to-morrow." Half an hour later, Cherry, dressed as neatly as her foster-mother's humble means and taste would allow, and her face glowing with pleasure and excitement, skipped out of the door of the tenement-house, looking like the fairy princess in a pantomime as she suddenly emerges from the hovel where she has been hidden. Giovanni followed, carrying a bundle, and his violin wrapped in papers. These, he explained to Mrs. Ginniss, were only some matters he had to leave with a friend as he went along; but he should not go into any house, or take the little girl anywhere but for the walk he had mentioned. "Faix, an' it's mighty ginteel ye are, anyway, Misther Jovarny," said the Irishwoman, watching the pair from the window of her attic as they walked slowly up the street. "But I'm afther wishin' I'd said no whin I said yis. Nor yet I couldn't tell why, more than that Teddy'll be mad to hear she's been wid him. But the b'y hasn't sinse whin it's about the little sisther he's talkin'. He thinks the ground isn't good enough for her to walk on, nor goold bright enough for her to wear." So saying, Mrs. Ginniss closed the window, and, throwing a little shawl over her head, locked the door, leaving the key underneath, and hurried away to her sick friend, with whom she staid till nearly night. Giovanni and Cherry, meantime, walked gayly on, chatting, now of the wonderful things about them, now of the yet more wonderful scenes they were to visit. At a confectioner's shop, in a shady by-street, they stopped to rest for a while; and the Italian provided his little guest with ice-creams, cakes, and candies, to her heart's content. "I like these better than potatoes and pork-meat. I used to eat these in heaven," said the little girl, pausing to look at a macaroon, and then finishing it with a relish. The Italian laughed. "Canary-birds do not feed with crows," said he. "When we are rich, picciola, you shall never eat worse than this." "Shall we be rich soon, 'Varny?" asked the child eagerly. "Upon the moment almost, if you will dance and laugh, and look so pretty as you can, always." "But we needn't stop to be very rich before we go and carry some of the nice things to mammy," rejoined Cherry anxiously. "No, no, indeed! We will but make a little turn in the country, and come back princes. But mind you this, picciola: I am to be your father now, or all the same; and I shall tell every one that you are my own little girl: so you must never say, 'Not so.'" "But mammy said my father was dead, and Teddy said so too. He was Michael darlint." "I doubt not that Signor Michaelli died, and has gone to glory; but I strangely doubt if he were thy father, picciola," said the Italian with a grave smile. "However that may be, forget that you have ever had other father than me, and call me so always: 'Mio padre,' you must say, and no more 'Varny. Also, too, you must speak in Italian, as I shall to you; and never, as you do now, in English." "But mammy and Teddy don't know Italian," said Cherry, beginning to look a little troubled. "'In Rome, do as the Romans do.' When you are again with the woman and boy, speak as they speak: with me, speak as I speak." Giovanni said this more decidedly than he had ever spoken before, and Cherry looked quickly up at him. "Is that the way you talk because you want to make believe you are my father?" asked she. A sudden smile shot across the Italian's face, lighting its dark features like a gleam of sunshine sweeping across a pine-clad mountain-land. "Shame were it to me, dear little heart, if to be thy father were to make thee less happy than thou hast been with those others," said he softly in Italian, and using the form of address, which, in almost every language but the English, marks a different and more tender relation from that indicated by the more formal plural pronoun. "You will be happy with me if we do not soon revisit these people we leave behind?" asked he. The child's eyes grew large and deep as she fixed them upon his face, and presently asked,-- "Are you going with me to try to find heaven again?" "Perhaps: who knows, picciola? The heaven you miss may come to you more easily if you go to seek it. At any rate, I will carry thee no farther from it. But come: we must get to our journey." Leaving the confectioner's shop, Giovanni lingered no longer in the gay streets, or even upon the fresh green grass of the Common, where Cherry would have staid to play all day. Hurrying across it, and through some crowded streets, the Italian entered a large station-house, where stood the train of cars, already half filled with passengers; while the engine, puffing and panting with impatience, seemed unwilling to wait a moment longer. Leaving Cherry in the ladies' room, the Italian bought his tickets, and reclaimed from the baggage-room, where he had left it, his organ, with Pantalon chained to the top of it. Then, calling the child, he hurried with her into the cars, and selected a seat behind the door, in the evident wish of being seen as little as possible. "Now, then, Ciriegia mia, we go to seek our fortune," said he, as the train left the station, and began to rush through the suburbs of the city, scattering little dirty children, vagrant dogs, leisurely pigs, and dawdling carriages driven by honest old ladies, from its track. Cherry never had ridden in the cars before; and she clung tight to the sleeve of her companion, afraid to move, or even to speak, until he laughingly asked,-- "It does not fear, the poor little one, does it?" "No, I guess not, 'Varny," replied the child doubtfully; but the Italian sharply said,-- "What is this 'Varny you say? I am mio padre." "I forgot. Won't I tumble out of this carriage, my father, it goes so quick?" "Fear nothing, figlia mia. You are safe with me and with Pantalon," said the Italian, drawing the little girl close to his side; while the monkey, crouching upon the organ at their feet, chattered his own promises of protection and comfort. With 'Toinette, to live was to love and trust; and, clinging close to her new guardian's side, she laid her little shining head upon his breast, clinging with one hand to the lappet of his coat; and, laughing down at Pantalon, she fell presently asleep. At night the Italian left the train, and took lodgings at a hotel near the centre of a large town. His little charge-tired, hungry, and sleepy-was very glad to have supper, and to be allowed to go to bed, where she slept soundly until summoned the next morning by Giovanni, who brought her some breakfast with his own hands, and, placing it upon the table, laid a bundle of clothes beside it. "Rise and eat, carissima," said be gayly; "and then make thyself as beautiful as the morning with these fine clothes. See, here are roses from the garden for a wreath! They are better than the others. When thou art ready, come out to me." He left the room; and 'Toinette, rising, made a hasty breakfast; and then, putting on the brocade-silk dress, and placing upon her head the wreath Giovanni had twisted of natural flowers for her, she peeped into the glass, and laughed aloud at the fanciful and beautiful image that met her eyes. "I am glad I look so pretty," murmured she, with an innocent delight at her own beauty, that was not vanity, although, it might, if untrained, lead to it. "Come, Ciriegia, are you never ready?" called Giovanni from the other side of the door; and Cherry, running to open it, exclaimed in Italian,-- "Oh, see, my father! am I not beautiful?" "Truly so; but you should not say it, bamb¡na. The charm of a maiden is her modesty," said the Italian gravely. "But, if it is true, why mustn't I say so?" asked Cherry positively. "Many things that we know are never to be said, Ciriega. But come, now: you are to dance first for these people, and they will make no charge for our beds and the miserable provender they have given us." As he spoke, Giovanni led the way to the lower hall of the hotel, where a number of men were lounging, smoking, or talking; while through the open doors of the parlor and office were to be seen some ladies and gentlemen, idling away the hour after breakfast, before proceeding to their business, their journey, or their amusement. Placing himself in the centre of the hall, Giovanni, with a bow to the company, played a little prelude, and then struck into the lively strains of the cachuca. Cherry, who had stood looking at him, her head slightly bent, her lips apart, eyes and ears alert to catch the signal to begin, pointed her little foot at the precise moment, and, holding her dress in the tips of her slender fingers, slid into the movement with a grace and accuracy never to be attained except by vigorous practice, or a temperament as sensitive to time and tune, limbs as supple, and impulses as graceful, as were those of this gifted and unfortunate child. "See there!-the poor little thing!" exclaimed one of the ladies, who came to the door of the drawing-room to see the performance. "How can you say poor little thing?" asked another. "Don't you see how she enjoys it herself? That smile is not the artificial grimace of a ballet-dancer; and no eyes ever sparkled so joyously to order." "Perhaps she does enjoy it; but all the more 'Poor little thing!' say I," rejoined the first speaker, adding thoughtfully, "What sort of training for a woman is that?" "Oh, well! but it is very pretty to see her; and she would probably be running in the streets, or doing worse, if she did not dance; and so little as she is! It is equal to the theatre." The speaker drew out her purse as she spoke, and carelessly threw a dollar-bill towards the child, who had finished her dance, and stood looking round with an innocent smile, as if asking for applause rather than reward. "Go and take it, carissima; and then hold your hand to the others; each will give you something," said Giovanni in a low voice. "How much we shall have to carry to mammy!" exclaimed the child eagerly; and, as she gathered in her harvest, she chattered away, always in Italian,-- "And more, and more, and more! O my father! how many cents they give me! What nice people they are! Let me dance some more for them; and let Pantalon come down, and let them see him." " No, no, child! These are not of those who would care for Pantalon. While you rest by and by, I shall take him and the organ, and go about the streets; but your little feet are worth many Pantalons to me. Come, we will give them the tarantella as they have done so well." Skipping to his side, with a childish grace more attractive than the studied movements of the most accomplished actress, Cherry stuffed the proceeds of her first attempt into the pocket of her guardian, and then, throwing herself into position, went through the wild and grotesque movements of the tarantella, with a life and freshness that drew from the spectators a burst of applause and surprise. "That will do. We must not give them too much at once, lest the wonder come to an end. Make the pretty kiss of the hand, figlia mia, and run up the stairs to your own little room." Cherry obeyed, calling back, as she disappeared, "Tell them I will dance some more for them by and by if they want me to." _ |
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