When the services were over, the teacher gave him a paper, and asked him to come again. He sat on the steps after all were gone, looking at the pictures, and when he returned to his lodging went around by Viola’s house, and was rewarded by seeing her sitting in the window with a book. When he reached the wretched place where he had spent the night, and looked for his guitar, he could not find it. Asking the woman about it, she said she was cleaning up, and it was somewhere on the floor. Nino’s heart began to swell, and when he found it in one corner, snapped and broken, his grief and anger burst forth in a volley of Italian. He hugged it, and sobbed over it, called the woman a beast, and pointed to the ruin of his favorite in angry despair.
In the midst of this tumult of feeling the paper he had received dropped out of his bosom, and striking his feet, recalled the teacher’s words and Viola sitting quietly by the window. Nino stopped, and for a moment was silent, then saying, “You didn’t mean to,” picked up the paper, folded his jacket over the guitar, and left the house. His anger had vanished; but his grief remained. He spent the evening in tears and wretchedness, alternately gazing at his guitar, stroking it, and then giving way to passionate crying. At last he slept, curled up in one corner, and in the morning awoke with a cough which hurt his side.
Now he had only his singing to depend on; he had not been taught any useful employment, and did not know how to work. He wandered about in the most disconsolate manner, his cough getting worse, and his grief for his guitar, which he always carried with him, still tormenting him. Sometimes, when people saw the poor boy crouching in a corner, hugging a broken guitar, and crying bitterly, they would give him a few cents. He would not beg; something held him back, and the thought of Viola would not let him steal.
On the Saturday after he had been to Sunday school, as he was sitting on a step, sadly thinking, he saw Viola and her nurse crossing the street towards him. At that moment a carriage with wildly running horses turned the corner. Men on the sidewalk shouted and waved their arms. Viola, confused by their cries, turned back, and the horses, startled, dashed in the same direction. Nino threw aside his guitar, and sprang forward, drew Viola out of danger, but fell himself, and the carriage passed over his foot, crushing it, while in falling he hit his head against the pavement, and lay insensible. Some of the men ran after the horses, some helped the nurse carry Viola home,—for she was crying and trembling with fright,—and a policeman took Nino away.
When Viola was restored, she began to ask for Nino.
“It was Nino, mamma, and I want to see him,” was her constant cry.
Her father and mother were also anxious to reward the brave boy who had saved their only child, and made many inquiries to find him. The policeman had taken him to the station-house, and there no one remembered anything about him.
“There are so many of those children brought in, madam, you have no idea. We don’t pretend to keep track of them all,” was the only information they could get.
At last they were obliged to give up their search; but Viola was much dissatisfied.
About a week after the accident Viola’s mother was invited by a lady friend to visit one of the city hospitals. She took Viola with her, and as they walked by the white beds, the child held her mother’s hand tightly, and felt quite subdued at the pale, sick faces about her. But suddenly she bounded away, and climbing on a little bed, cried,—