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!