The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories Part 18

"Well, let's rest here a few minutes anyway," said Willie.

Opposite the door of the hut was its one window, the gla.s.s so covered with cobwebs that very little light came through. It was dark enough in there for a bear's den--he might, in fact, be in there. But flinging the door wide open, the boys ventured in. There was a visible movement at the window, but it proved to be only three or four great, gray spiders hurrying to their coverts from the unwonted light.

"What's this, d.i.c.k?" and Will kicked a tangled ma.s.s of iron from a corner into the sunshine.

d.i.c.k eyed it a moment. "Aha--it's a bear trap," said he.

"Well, we _will_ catch him, now," said Will triumphantly.

"The old thing's too rusty and weak," d.i.c.k p.r.o.nounced finally, after examining it. "'Twouldn't hold a bear."

"Oh, let's just set it, anyhow, and _try_," coaxed Will.

After repeated efforts, in which Will got caught himself--or, rather, his boot--they got the huge iron jaws wide open, and the trencher in place.

"Next thing we must shoot something for bait," said Will.

"I really think we haven't time, not to-night, Will," said d.i.c.k. "See!

it's almost sunset, and we are two miles from home through the woods."

"Well, then, I've got two doughnuts left. Let's put them on."

"Very well," laughed d.i.c.k, good-naturedly, "if you can wait for your supper."

So the trap, with a doughnut tied to the trencher, was placed a few feet just outside the cabin where any one within could plainly see it from the window. The chain was made fast, and the other doughnut broken to bits, and scattered about.

The next morning the boys were early on the tramp, in order to visit a shallow pond some three miles eastward, where they expected to find moose. After tiptoing about and impatiently watching the sh.o.r.es till afternoon, they did see a moose; but before they were within range, he turned to run.

"Fire, Will!" shouted d.i.c.k.

The report of two guns echoed from the woods about, while the moose with a sudden bound or two, disappeared among the trees. They could hear the great creature crashing through the woods, and they hurried on in pursuit. After going about a mile they lost track of him, and they gave it up as neither had detected any token that the animal was hurt.

The chase had led them near a trail that pa.s.sed the McPheter's camp; and they jokingly turned that way to see if anything had happened there.

"If that doughnut isn't gone, I'm going to eat it," murmured Will. "I'm awful hungry."

"I doubt that the birds and squirrels have left any till this time,"

said d.i.c.k.

"A large bird, or a gray squirrel would get caught, if they touched it, wouldn't they?" questioned Will hopefully.

"Perhaps--if the old trap wasn't so rusty--but hush--there's the camp.

Supposing we keep behind it and go in until we see if there's anything in the trap."

They opened the door softly, and moved lightly in and toward the window.

The first glance gave them a start. There was a big bear sitting bolt upright, with his forepaws hanging, right before the window. He had evidently heard the sound of their approach, and was looking around for them. d.i.c.k gave one long, but weary look. Then he shouted:

"All right, Will. He's caught! The doughnut did it!"

For a moment the boys stood looking out of the window, and the bear sat looking in. It was too much for Bruin--that gaze of exultant victory. He struggled a moment with the trap, then, with one vigorous leap, he cleared himself and went head and shoulders into that window.

d.i.c.k sprang for a hole in the low roof, and Will dashed out of the door.

He had just time to shut it behind him before the bear came b.u.mping against it.

It were hard to say who was hunter and who was hunted just then. Will was outside, but virtually the bear's captive, as he stood braced back against the door. d.i.c.k was creeping about on the rotten, creaking roof.

The bear was inside, vigorously snuffing about for his enemies. He repeatedly tried the door, but it failed to open. He growled up the hole in the roof at d.i.c.k, but couldn't reach him. There they were, three very uncomfortable parties.

At last the boys heard the sound of rattling gla.s.s again; evidently the bear was going to try the hunt outside. Will made a frantic endeavor to open the door, but he had pushed so hard that now it stuck. He got it open at last, and peeped in, just at the instant when the bear came round the corner.

This was the situation now: Will was looking in after the bear, the bear had come round after Will, and d.i.c.k, on the roof, was trying to get a good sight at the bear without slipping off. By holding to the hole in the roof with his foot, he found himself able to peep over the eaves; and when the bear turned the corner, he with lucky aim, and plucky quickness put a moose-charge into the back of the creature's head.

Will turned and was putting his gun out to fire, just as d.i.c.k dropped down through the roof. But the bear lay still. d.i.c.k's shot had finished him.

There was, of course, great rejoicing between the two young hunters.

They started a fire, then took off Bruin's skin; and soon some most delicious bearsteaks were broiling on the coals.

"I don't miss that doughnut at all, somehow," said Will as they sat at dinner.

A REAL HAPPENING.

Old Beppo and Nina, his wife, with their two boys, lived in one of those little excavations which everybody who has visited Naples will remember.

I hardly know what to call them, for they certainly do not deserve the name of dwellings. They are little holes dug in the sandy hillsides just outside the busy city, where the poor people crawl in at night, and where they keep their little belongings by day. The poor of Naples live out of doors, as indeed the poor people all through Southern Italy do; and it does not seem half as hard to be poor in Italy as elsewhere. The beautiful, clear, blue sky overhead, and the soft, warm earth to sit and lie upon, with the delicious air to breathe, and the great Duomos always open to them where they can go at any hour of the day and feel that they have just as much right as kings and princes--who wonders that they are contented, lazy and dreamy? Give a Neapolitan beggar macaroni and sunshine, and he will sit and dream away the hours with no thought or care of what will come to-morrow. He has just energy to whine--"_Poverino Signorina_"--and it matters little whether his extended hand is filled with _centismi_ or not; according as it may be, he calls upon the "_Sanctissmi Virgina_" to bless or curse you and sinks away into dreamy content till the next stranger approaches. Not so with Old Beppo; he tugged all day grinding out dolorous tunes from his old organ, and whether people paid him for grinding, or paid him to stop grinding, all the same Old Beppo thought he was earning an honest living.

Everybody in the little neighborhood of Lazzaroni knew and loved Old Beppo--why he was always called _Old_ Beppo, I never knew, unless it was because his home-life had given him a subdued, downcast look, and his shoulders were more rounded and bent than even his heavy organ would have made them if he could have had a little comfort and cheer in the poor place he called home. Nina was a peevish, querulous wife--always finding fault, and never satisfied with Beppo's earnings; true, it was little enough he brought at night after trudging all day with his hand-organ, and as he approached the little rookery at the end of the day his steps grew languid and heavy, for he knew his only welcome would be Nina's grumbling, fretful greeting; and poor Old Beppo, after unstrapping his burden and eating his poor meal of macaroni, found rest, not on the little seat outside his own door with his wife and children, but on the sand-bank, or on a neighbor's doorseat where he could smoke his pipe in peace beyond the sound of Nina's croaking, scolding voice.

The two boys were like their mother, and Beppo found little comfort in them, so it must be confessed that when in the summer of 1860 Nina was called away to a country where Old Beppo hoped she would not find so much to scold about, his grief was not inconsolable, and a year later he found a more congenial companion in a trim, pretty little widow whose husband was taken off by the same scourge that carried Nina away. Italia had one little boy who was, like his mother, amiable and pretty, with the beautiful great black eyes of a true Italian, and all the fascinating ways of a pretty child of nature. He might have been used for a model of Italian child-beauty.

Old Beppo spent two peaceful and happy years with Italia, and then came again the summer pestilence and poor Italia was one of the victims.

Little Dino was heartbroken at the loss of his mother, and Old Beppo, after trying in vain to console the little boy, decided to take him, with the two half-brothers, to America, as much perhaps to change the scene for little Dino as to better his condition in our land of hope and promise. Dino played the violin and accompanied Old Beppo in his wanderings over the country for a time, until the old man became restless and unhappy and longed for his native air. Dino had recovered his childish spirits, and was happy in the freedom of our free sunny summer weather where he had plenty to eat, and was petted and pampered because of his pretty little ways and his bright black eyes. But Old Beppo could not live away from his "beautiful Italy," and as soon as he gathered pennies enough, he took pa.s.sage for Naples and left the three boys in America.

The two older boys were to look after little Dino and to give him such care as he needed. True to their coa.r.s.e nature and instincts, they began, as soon as their father had left, to send Dino out with his violin to earn not only his own bread but theirs; for they knew that his attractive little face and winsome manners would win for them more pennies than they could for themselves. This was true, but sometimes the pennies failed, and the days were dull, and people did not care for Dino's music; and then the brothers beat him and ill-treated him until he could endure it no longer.

The summer was pa.s.sing; the days were becoming cool, and the nights damp and chilly, and oftentimes little Dino, rather than go to his brothers where he was sure to meet with cruel treatment, would creep under an old cart or under some door-steps and spend the night. This he did not complain of until the nights grew frosty, and the poor little fellow found himself stiff and cold when morning came; and then with the tears streaming down his cheeks he longed for "My Italy. I 'fraid I freeze to death, I want my mother," he said pitifully.

His brothers kept track of him and lost no opportunity to illtreat him, and he resolved to run away from Boston and go to some place where they could not find him. Accordingly one rainy, chilly night in November, he took the cars and started to go--he knew not where, but anywhere beyond the knowledge of the brothers who had whipped him until he bore the marks all over his little body. Crouched down in a corner of the cars, Dino was counting his pennies when the conductor found him and asked in not the pleasantest tones where he wished to go.

Of course he had no idea how much money it took to ride in the cars even a short distance; so he gave the conductor all the pennies he had, and said, "I want to go so far."

[Ill.u.s.tration: LITTLE DINO AT THE FAIR.]

It was on this dismal, chilly November night that little Dino found himself in one of the suburban towns of Boston, where some young ladies were holding a little sale for the benefit of a Home for Orphan Children in their neighborhood. The day being so unpropitious, visitors had been few and sales very slow. The young people, with rueful faces, were talking in the twilight of their disappointed hopes, and wondering if the evening would bring customers for the little articles they had spent all their leisure summer hours upon, in the hope of adding a large sum to the depleted treasury of the town, when suddenly a child's voice was heard at the door, "Me want to play me fiddle for some supper."

No one who saw that tiny boy with his pleading eyes, and his rich, soft voice and his broken foreign accent, as he stood half clad in the chill of that November night, can ever forget the picture. They were at a loss to know what to do. They said, "But we don't want to hear your fiddle.

Where did you come from, and what is your name, and where are you going?

It is night and where will you sleep?"