It was cold in the mountains, and the children shivered as Carlotta
routed them out in the early dawn of the next morning. "Come," she said
crossly, as she set up the forked sticks for the kettle, "bestir
yourselves, lazy ones! We are poor people. Do you think we can afford
to feed you and wait upon you like servants besides? To-day there must
be no more snivelling and whining. Beppo, take the pail and fetch
water. You, Beppina, gather sticks for the fire."
Her wheedling manner was now quite gone. Instead she gave her orders
with such a threatening look that the children trembled with fear as
they hastened to obey. At a little distance from the spot where they
were encamped, a stream, fed by a mountain spring, gushed forth from a
pile of rocks, and Beppo, seizing the pail, plunged into the dark pine
woods to find it. Beppina followed, and the instant they found
themselves alone in the forest, the two hid behind a tree and held a
hurried consultation.
"Listen, cocca mia," whispered Beppo. "I have thought this all out.
They do not mean to take us back, ever! They will keep us like slaves
to work for them! If we want to see our home again, we must obey
everything they say, no matter how hard. Then some day, when they
aren't watching, we will run away. Only not in these mountains! We
should only die of hunger and be eaten by the wolves."
Beppina shuddered. "Oh, Beppo," she sobbed, "there is a lump in my
throat as big as an egg! I cannot swallow it. When I think of Mammina,
it seems to me I shall die!"
Beppo gave her a little shake. "But you _must_ be brave," he said.
"Every day we will have a word together, and soon our chance will come."
"I'll try, Beppo," said Beppina, gulping down her sobs.
"Good girl!" said Beppo, patting her approvingly, though his own lips
trembled and his voice shook. "Don't you remember how it is in the
fairy tales? The prince _always_ kills the giants and dragons if only
he isn't afraid, even if he has to pass through enchanted forests."
Beppina looked fearfully over her shoulder. "Oh, Beppo," she gasped, "I
didn't think of it before, but now I'm sure. This _is_ an enchanted
forest, and Carlotta is a witch woman! We must pray always to the Holy
Virgin to protect us. Promise me you will!"
"I promise," said Beppo solemnly; "and don't you forget about the prince
either."
Just then they heard Carlotta's voice shouting at them, and, leaping
apart, they fled to do their errands.
When breakfast had been eaten, and the animals fed, Luigi lit his pipe
and stretched out on the ground beside the fire with the monkey beside
him.
"Here we stay a little," he said. "Ugolone lies there like one dead.
The donkeys are tired and so am I. We have come thirty miles from
Florence."
"Ecco!" said Carlotta. "Then there is time for bean soup." She sent
Beppo for more water, and, when the kettle was bubbling on the fire,
called the children to her side. "Tell me," she said, "can you dance?"
"A little," quavered Beppina. "Dance, then," said the woman. Beppina
reluctantly seized her skirts, and, making a dancing-school bow, took a
few dainty steps and tripped over a stone.
Carlotta laughed contemptuously. "Santa Maria!" she said, "you don't
call that dancing!" Then, beckoning to her husband, she cried, "But
they know nothing! They cannot earn their salt! We have made a bad
bargain. Come, then, and we will teach these ignorant ones the
trescone!"
Luigi grunted as he rose unwillingly from his hard couch, tied the
monkey's string about a tree branch, and came forward.
"Watch closely, both of you," said Carlotta to the children. "It is for
you to dance like Tuscans, not like marionettes. Even old Ugolone can
do better."
Once he was roused, Luigi's weariness seemed to vanish. He suddenly
seized Carlotta's hands, and, holding her at arm's length, began to
wheel and jump, to turn and twist in all sorts of curious figures.
Sometimes the dancers' arms were linked above their heads. Sometimes
they shook a lifted foot. Faster and faster they whirled, and the
monkey, inspired by their example, began to leap and bound about at the
end of her string, chattering wildly.
The speed of the dancers slackened like that of a spinning top, and they
came to a sudden standstill. Luigi returned to Carina and his place by
the fire, and Carlotta got out the hand-organ. All the morning she made
the children practice the figures of the dance to music, until they were
ready to drop with fatigue. While she prepared the soup for their noon
meal they were allowed to rest, but immediately afterwards the donkeys
were harnessed again, and to the music of their tinkling bells the
little cavalcade moved on.
For some time they travelled over the steep mountain roads without
seeing a soul; then they met a girl driving a flock of sheep to pasture.
Later they overtook some peasant women walking like queens with great
loads of wood on their heads. Beyond them they passed an ox-team, and
Beppo whispered to Beppina, "It's a good sign to meet oxen in the road."
But alas, a moment later they met a priest, mumbling his prayers as he
walked. It was a glance of despair that Beppina gave her brother then,
for it is very bad luck to meet a priest in the road, as every Tuscan
child can tell you.
Nevertheless, all these signs, bad and good, indicated that they were
approaching a town, and a few moments later they came to a stream where
women were washing clothes, and the van rumbled across a bridge and into
the open square of a small mountain village. In an instant there was
great excitement in the town, and all the inhabitants swarmed about the
van.
Luigi climbed down from the driver's seat, with Carina on his shoulder,
and loosed the bear's rope, while Carlotta brought out the organ, and
gave the tambourine to the monkey.
"Balla! Balla!" cried Luigi, and Ugolone rising to his hind legs
wearily began his clumsy dance. The children, meanwhile, shrank back
out of sight in the van.
"She will make us dance like the bear, I know she will," moaned Beppina,
"and I cannot remember the steps!" She crossed herself frantically, and
said a prayer to the Virgin, but it was of no avail, for soon Carlotta's
wheedling tones reached their hiding-place.
"Avanti, carissimi," she called, and, not daring to disobey or even to
linger, the children leaped from the back of the van into the centre of
a crowd of round-eyed villagers. The children of the Marchese Grifoni
dancing in company with a monkey and a bear for the entertainment of an
audience of peasants! The humiliation of it was almost more than they
could endure, but the Twins did their best, and the moment the
performance was over dived into the back of the van, and hid themselves
again, while Carina leaped about among the crowd, gathering the soldi in
her tambourine.
Their stay in the village was short, for the people were poor.
"It is a town of pigs," said Carlotta angrily, as she counted the money,
and to the great relief of the children she gave the order to move on
into the hills beyond the village.
They stopped at one more village during the afternoon, and here things
went better. The children remembered their steps, and there were more
soldi in the tambourine, even though Ugolone sat firmly down upon his
haunches and refused to budge. In vain Luigi tugged at his rope and
shouted "Balla! Balla!" It was as if Ugolone, seeing the children
dance, had concluded that his dancing days were over, and had resigned
in their favour.
To make up for Ugolone the Twins had to dance again and again, and then
to their great surprise Carlotta made them sing! They had voices like
the whistle of song thrushes in the spring, but how in the world could
Carlotta have guessed that? They were too astonished to refuse, even if
they had dared, so they opened their mouths and quavered out a song
about the swallow, which they had learned in the nursery at home.