The Modern Vikings

“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!