THE TAMBOURINE GIRL
Arriving at Trinity Church, Phil turned into Wall Street, looking about
him in a desultory way, for he was at present out of business. Men and
boys were hurrying by in different directions, to and from banks and
insurance offices, while here and there a lawyer or lawyer’s clerk might
be seen looking no less busy and preoccupied. If Phil had had three
thousand dollars instead of three, he, too, might have been interested
in the price of gold and stocks; but his financial education had
been neglected, and he could not have guessed within twenty the day’s
quotations for either.
As he walked along his attention was suddenly drawn to a pair of
Italians, a man and a girl of twelve, the former turning a hand-organ,
the latter playing a tambourine. There was nothing unusual in the group;
but Phil’s heart beat quick for in the girl he thought he recognized a
playmate from the same village in which he was born and bred.
“Lucia!” he called, eagerly approaching the pair.
The girl turned quickly, and, seeing the young fiddler, let fall her
tambourine in surprise.
“Filippo!” she exclaimed, her eyes lighting up with the joy with which
we greet a friend’s face in a strange land.
“Why did you drop your tambourine, scelerata?” demanded the man,
harshly.
Lucia, a pretty, brown-faced girl, did not lose her joyful look even at
this rebuke. She stooped and picked up the tambourine, and began to play
mechanically, but continued to speak to Filippo.
“How long are you in the city?” asked Phil, speaking, of course, in his
native language.
“Only two weeks,” answered Lucia. “I am so glad to see you, Filippo.”
“When did you come from Italy?”
“I cannot tell. I think it is somewhere about two months.”
“And did you see my mother before you came away?” asked Phil, eagerly.
“Yes, Filippo, I saw her. She told me if I saw you to say that she
longed for her dear boy to return; that she thought of him day and
night.”
“Did she say that, Lucia?”
“Yes, Filippo.”
“And is my mother well?” asked Phil, anxiously, for he had a strong love
for his mother.
“She is well, Filippo--she is not sick, but she is thin, and she looks
sad.”
“I will go and see her some day,” said Phil. “I wish I could see her
now.”
“When will you go?”
“I don’t know; when I am older.”
“But where is your fiddle, Filippo?” asked Lucia. “Do you not play?”
Filippo glanced at the organ-grinder, whom he did not dare to take into
his confidence. So he answered, evasively:
“Another boy took it. I shall get another this afternoon.”
“Are you with the padrone?”
“Yes.”
“Come, Lucia,” said the man, roughly, ceasing to play, “we must go on.”
Lucia followed her companion obediently, reluctant to leave Phil,
with whom she desired to converse longer; but the latter saw that her
guardian did not wish the conversation to continue, and so did not
follow.
This unexpected meeting with Lucia gave him much to think of. It carried
back his thoughts to his humble, but still dear, Italian home, and the
mother from whom he had never met with anything but kindness, and a
longing to see both made him for the moment almost sad. But he was
naturally of a joyous temperament, and hope soon returned.
“I will save money enough to go home,” he said to himself. “It will not
take very much--not more than fifty dollars. I can get it soon if I do
not have to pay money to the padrone.”
As may be inferred, Phil did not expect to return home in style. A
first-class ticket on a Cunarder was far above his expectations. He
would be content to go by steerage all the way, and that could probably
be done for the sum he named. So his sadness was but brief, and be soon
became hopeful again.
He was aroused from his thoughts of home by a hand laid familiarly on
his shoulder. Turning, he saw a bootblack, whose adventures have
been chronicled in the volume called “Ragged Dick.” They had become
acquainted some three months before, Dick having acted as a protector to
Phil against some rough boys of his own class.
“Been buyin’ stocks?” asked Dick.
“I don’t know what they are,” said Phil, innocently.
“You’re a green one,” said Dick. “I shall have to take you into my
bankin’ house and give you some training in business.”
“Have you got a bankin’ house?” asked Phil, in surprise.
“In course I have. Don’t you see it?” pointing to an imposing-looking
structure in front of which they were just passing. “My clerks is all
hard to work in there, while I go out to take the air for the benefit of
my constitushun.”
Phil looked puzzled, not quite understanding Dick’s chaffing, and looked
rather inquiringly at the blacking box, finding it a little difficult to
understand why a banker on so large a scale should be blacking boots in
the street.
“Shine your boots, sir?” said Dick to a gentleman just passing.
“Not now; I’m in a hurry.”
“Blackin’ boots is good exercise,” continued Dick, answering the doubt
in Phil’s face. “I do it for the benefit of my health, thus combinin’
profit with salubriousness.”
“I can’t understand such long words,” said Phil. “I don’t know much
English.”
“I would talk to you in Italian,” said Dick, “only it makes my head
ache. What’s come of your fiddle? You haven’t sold it, and bought Erie
shares, have you?”
“A boy stole it from me, and broke it.”
“I’d like to lick him. Who was it?”
“I think his name was Tim Rafferty.”
“I know him,” said Dick. “I’ll give him a lickin’ next time I see him.”
“Can you?” asked Phil, doubtfully, for his enemy was as large as Dick.
“In course I can. My fists are like sledge-hammers. Jest feel my
muscle.”
Dick straightened out his arm, and Phil felt of the muscle, which was
hard and firm.
“It’s as tough as a ten-year-old chicken,” said Dick. “It won’t be
healthy for Tim to come round my way. What made him steal your fiddle?
He ain’t goin’ into the musical line, is he?”
“He was angry because I didn’t want to lend it to him.”
Just then Tim Rafferty himself turned the corner. There was a lull in
his business, and he was wandering along the street eating an apple.
“There he is,” said Phil, suddenly espying his enemy.
Dick looked up, and saw with satisfaction that Phil was right. Tim had
not yet espied either, nor did he till Dick addressed him.
“Are you round collectin’ fiddles this mornin’?” he asked.
Tim looked up, and, seeing that his victim had found an able champion,
felt anxious to withdraw. He was about to turn back, but Dick advanced
with a determined air.
“Jest stop a minute, Tim Rafferty,” said he. “I’m a-goin’ to intervoo
you for the Herald. That’s what they do with all the big rascals
nowadays.”
“I’m in a hurry,” said Tim.
“That’s what the pickpocket said when the cop was gently persuadin’ him
to go to the Tombs, but the cop didn’t see it. I want the pleasure of
your society a minute or two. I hear you’re in the music business.”
“No, I’m not,” said Tim, shortly.
“What made you borrer this boy’s fiddle, then?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” said Tim, in a fright.
“Some folks forgets easy,” returned Dick. “I know a man what went into
Tiffany’s and took up a watch to look at, and carried it off, forgettin’
to pay for it. That’s what he told the judge the next day, and the judge
sent him to the island for a few months to improve his memory. The air
over to the island is very good to improve the memory.”
“You ought to know,” said Tim, sullenly; “you’ve been there times
enough.”
“Have I?” said Dick. “Maybe you saw me there. Was it the ninth time you
were there, or the tenth?”
“I never was there,” said Tim.
“Maybe it was your twin brother.” suggested Dick. “What made you break
my friend’s fiddle? He wouldn’t have minded it so much, only it belonged
to his grandfather, a noble count, who made boots for a livin’.”
“I don’t believe he had a fiddle at all,” said Tim.
“That’s where your forgetfulness comes in,” said Dick “Have you forgot
the lickin’ I gave you last summer for stealin’ my blackin’ box?”
“You didn’t lick me,” said Tim.
“Then I’ll lick you harder next time,” said Dick.
“You ain’t able,” said Tim, who, glancing over his shoulder, saw the
approach of a policeman, and felt secure.
“I will be soon,” said Dick, who also observed the approach of the
policeman. “I’d do it now, only I’ve got to buy some gold for a friend
of mine. Just let me know when it’s perfectly convenient to take a
lickin’.”
Tim shuffled off, glad to get away unharmed, and Dick turned to Phil.
“I’ll give him a lickin’ the first time I catch him, when there isn’t a
cop around,” he said.
Phil left his friend at this point, for he saw by the clock on Trinity
spire that it was time to go back to join Paul Hoffman, as he had
agreed. I may here add that Phil’s wrongs were avenged that same
evening, his friend, Dick, administered to Tim the promised “lickin’”
with such good effect that the latter carried a black eye for a week
afterwards.