“Stop, you sacrilegious brute!” said one of the young men, addressing, not the bear, but his master; “we have a better kind of music here than your asthmatic organ can produce.”
The Savoyard, being apparently well accustomed to this manner of address, swung his organ across his back and was about to take his departure, when Karen, prompted by some idle impulse, stepped up to the bear and patted it. Then a sudden change came over the young man’s countenance. He stared for a moment fixedly at the little girl.
“Take care, Carina mia,” he said, with a smile; “that bear is a real one!”
“Annibale!” she cried in surprise; and, to be sure, it was Annibale!
He had grown five years older, but in other respects he had changed but little. He knew but very little more English than he had done on the day of his arrival, and his ambition still did not extend beyond hand-organs and bears. He reaped a plentiful harvest of coins that night; but that was owing to little Karen, and not to the doleful hand-organ. She ran into the cottage and spread out upon the lawn a rug, made out of a small bear-skin. “Do you know that, Annibale?” she cried.
“Garibaldi, my poor Garibaldi!” exclaimed the Savoyard, while the tears glittered in his eyes; and he stooped down and caressed the furry head.
Now the curiosity of the young ladies was excited, and the whole company clamored for the story of Annibale and the bear-skin. They all seated themselves in a ring about Fiddle-John, and he told the story, as I have told it to you. For I had the good luck to be one of the listeners.
[FOOTNOTES:]
[1] Skees are a kind of snowshoe, four to six feet long, bent upward in front, with a band to attach it to the foot in the middle.