________________________________________________
_ IN the course of that day, Giovanni and his little danseuse visited
all the principal public places in the town, and also several of the
best private houses; and, at all, the performances of the child
called forth the surprise, delight, and admiration of those who
witnessed them. Nor were more substantial proofs of their approval
wanting; so that at night, when Giovanni counted up his gains, he
found them so large, that he cried, while embracing poor weary
little Cherry,--
"O blessed, blessed moment when thou didst cross my path, Ciriegia
carissima!"
"Now can't we go home to mammy? I am so tired, and my head feels
sick!" moaned the child, laying the poor aching little head upon his
shoulder.
Giovanni looked down at the pale face, and, meeting the languid
eyes, felt a pang of conscience and pity.
"Thou art tired, bamb¡na povera mia," said he kindly. "Another day,
we will be more careful. Lie down now, and sleep for a while. We go
again in the steam-carriage to-night."
Cherry climbed upon the bed without reply, and in a moment was fast
asleep. The Italian drew the coverings about her, and stooped to
kiss the pale cheek, where showed already a dark circle beneath the
eye, and a painful contraction at the corner of the mouth.
"Poveracita!" murmured he. "But soon we will have money enough to go
home to the father-land, and then all will be well with her as with
me."
Three hours later, he came to arouse the child, and prepare her to
renew the journey.
"Oh, I am so tired! I want to sleep some more so bad, 'Varny!-no, my
father, I mean. I don't want to go somewhere," said she piteously,
closing her eyes, and struggling to lay her head again upon the
pillow. Giovanni hesitated for a moment; and then, never knowing
that the decision was one of life and death, the question of a whole
future career, he determined to pursue his plan in spite of that
plaintive entreaty, and, hastily wrapping a shawl about the child,
took her in his arms, and carried her down stairs. The organ and
Pantalon waited in the hall below; and Giovanni, setting Cherry upon
her feet, shouldered the organ and, taking the little girl by the
hand, led her out into the quiet street, where lay the light of a
full moon, making the night more beautiful than day. Cherry's drowsy
eyes flew wide open; and, looking up in Giovanni's face with eager
joy, she cried,--
"Oh! now we're going back to heaven; aren't we, my father? It was
bright and still like this in heaven; and I saw a star, and-and then
the naughty lady struck me"--
"Peace, little one! I know not of what you speak, nor any thing of
heaven," said the Italian in a troubled voice; and the child,
hurrying along at his side, raised her face silently to the summer
sky, seeking there, perhaps, the answer to the questions forever
stirring in her struggling soul.
A little later, and the swift train, flying through the sleeping
land, bore away the travellers; while Giovanni, settling himself as
easily as possible, laid the head of his little Ciriegia upon his
breast, tenderly smoothed down her silky curls, and laid his hand
upon the bright eyes, that frightened him with the intensity of
their gaze.
"Sleep, carissima mia, sleep," murmured he soothingly; "sleep, and
forget thy weariness and thy memories."
"I can't sleep now, my father. It seems to me that we are going to
heaven; and I want to be awake to see-the lady"--
The words faltered, and died upon her lips. The beautiful image of
her mother, fading slowly from her memory, seemed already a vision
so vague, that to name it were to lose it,--an idea too precious and
too impalpable to put in words. The past, with all its love and joy
and beauty, was becoming for our 'Toinette what we may fancy heaven
is to a little baby, whose solemn eyes and earnest gaze seem forever
attempting to recall the visions of celestial beauty it has left for
the pale, sad skies, and mournful sounds of earth.
On rushed the train through the quiet night, waking wild echoes in
the woods, and leaving them to whisper themselves again to sleep
when it had passed; lighting dark valleys that the moonlight left
unlighted, with its whirling banner of flame and sparks, and its
hundred blazing windows; moving across the holy calm of midnight
like some strange and troubled vision, some ugly nightmare, that for
the moment changes peace and rest to horror and affright, and then
passes again to the dim and ghostly Dreamland, whose frontier crowds
our daily life on every hand, and whence forever peep and beckon the
mysteries that perplex and haunt the human mind.
On and on and on, through misty lowland and shadowy wood, and over
shining rivers, and through sleeping hamlets, and winding,
snake-like, between great round hills and along deep
mountain-gorges, until the wild, bright eyes that watched beneath
Cherry's matted curls grew soft and dim; and at last the white lids
fell, and the curve of the sad lips relaxed beneath the kiss of
God's mildest messenger to man,--the spirit of sleep.
As for Giovanni, he long had slumbered heavily; and even Pantalon,
whose bright eyes were seldom known to close, was now curled up
beneath the organ-covering, dreaming, perhaps, of the nut-groves and
spice-islands where he had once known liberty and youth.
Just then it came,--a crash as if heaven and earth had met; a wild,
deep cry, made up of all tones of human agony and fright; the shriek
of escaping steam; the rending and splintering of wood and iron;
destruction, terror, pain, and death, all mingled in one awful
moment. Then those who had escaped unhurt began the sad and terrible
task of withdrawing from the ruin the maimed and bleeding bodies of
those who yet lived, the crushed remains and fragments of those who
had been killed in the moment of the encounter: and, in all the
bewildering confusion of the scene, none had eyes for the little
childish figure, that, hurled from the splintered car, lay for a
while stunned and shaken among the soft grass where it had fallen,
and then, staggering to its feet, fled wildly away into the dim
forest-land. _
Read next: CHAPTER XVIII - DORA DARLING
Read previous: CHAPTER XVI - BEGINNING A NEW LIFE
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