Books › The Red Book 1912-07: Vol 19 Iss 3, 1912 › scan 89
Scan 89
The Red Book 1912-07: Vol 19 Iss 3, 1912
42 lines. Read by computer on 14 September 2026. Printed page 472. See the scan on archive.org.
1She sighed.
3Afterwards, when he was asleep, Marianna lighted her last candle and put it on the window-sill. She knelt beside it, shading it in the hollow of her hand and whispering to it.
5"Dear candle, mos' nize candle, burn high, burn well, burn grad beeg light," she coaxed; "burn, candle of my heart, thad my fathaire may see thee and come again."
7She did not sleep. She lay watching the candle until it danced before her drowsy eyes, and when it finally burned down and went out, the pale stars shone in upon the wakeful child. She was very hungry, but she turned her face on her thin little arm and was silent until Dino awoke to demand food.
9She gathered him close in her arms. "Hush," she whispered, "today we will getta our fathaire again; do not cry, caro mio—you will scare away thad beeg whale."
11Dino hushed his high notes, but he continued to whimper until she found the last bit of sugar and gave it to him to suck. Then, without breakfast, the two elder children took up the big old violin case and went out together, carrying it, Dino toddling disconsolately behind them.
13They trudged patiently along, though the violin case was heavy. Once Marianna had misgivings.
15"Our fathaire will nod lika us to sell thees," she said. "He lika well thad violin."
17"If we do nod getta salt pork," replied Tomaso, "he will stay inside the whay-al."
19This argument was unanswerable, and they continued on their way. At the bake-shop window Dino interrupted them with loud complaints, but finally they drew near the little shop of a second-hander—a strange little shop that showed a wonderful medley in its narrow show window; there were coral beads, old shoes, a hat that might well have graced a pirate signore, a bundle of arrows, and a stuffed rabbit. Dino hung there, gazing at the amazing treasures, while Marianna and Tomaso painfully and carefully carried in the violin-case and set it down on the floor.
21Marianna looked up with awe at the long gray beard and gold-rimmed spectacles of the second-hander, but she courtesied prettily, while little Tomaso propped up the black case, his round black head just appearing over the top of it.
23"Signore," said the little spokeswoman, timidly, "we would to sell our violin."
25The old Italian leaned his elbows on the counter and looked over his spectacles at the two small figures within and the smaller one without.
27"It is not your violin, I think, carina," he said grimly, in his native tongue; "where now is your father and your mother?"
29Marianna looked up at him with grave sweet eyes. "My mothaire is dead when Dino is born; my fathaire is at present in a whale."
31The second-hander puckered his big brows. "In a whale?" he repeated gravely.
33Tomaso peered around the neck of the violin case. "Our fathaire shucks oysters, signore," he explained, "and he goes to the boat and he comes nod again, so we know thad bad whay-al has swallered our fathaire."
35"We desire to sella the violin to getta salt pork for thad whale," added Marianna.
37The second-hander stretched out a lean hand and took the violin case from the struggling Tomaso. He opened it and looked at the old instrument.
39"Id is the violin thad plays thad grad music from the Opera. My fathaire, he told us," said Marianna.
41But the old man did not heed her; he fingered the violin eagerly. He swept aside his long beard and placing it under
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