Phil the Fiddler | Page 4

ten o'clock in the morning. Two hours had elapsed since
Filippo, or Phil, as I shall call him, for the benefit of my readers
unfamiliar with Italian names, had left the miserable home in Crosby
Street, where he and forty other boys lived in charge of a middle-aged
Italian, known as the padrone. Of this person, and the relations between
him and the boys, I shall hereafter speak. At present I propose to
accompany Phil.

Though he had wandered about, singing and playing, for two hours,
Phil had not yet received a penny. This made him somewhat uneasy,
for he knew that at night he must carry home a satisfactory sum to the
padrone, or he would be brutally beaten; and poor Phil knew from sad
experience that this hard taskmaster had no mercy in such cases.
The block in which he stood was adjacent to Fifth Avenue, and was
lined on either side with brown-stone houses. It was quiet, and but few
passed through it during the busy hours of the day. But Phil's hope was
that some money might be thrown him from a window of some of the
fine houses before which he played, but he seemed likely to be
disappointed, for he played ten minutes without apparently attracting
any attention. He was about to change his position, when the basement
door of one of the houses opened, and a servant came out, bareheaded,
and approached him. Phil regarded her with distrust, for he was often
ordered away as a nuisance. He stopped playing, and, hugging his
violin closely, regarded her watchfully.
"You're to come in," said the girl abruptly.
"Che cosa volete?"[1] said Phil, suspiciously.
[1] "What do you want?"
"I don't understand your Italian rubbish," said the girl. "You're to come
into the house."
In general, boys of Phil's class are slow in learning English. After
months, and even years sometimes, their knowledge is limited to a few
words or phrases. On the other hand, they pick up French readily, and
as many of them, en route for America, spend some weeks, or months,
in the French metropolis, it is common to find them able to speak the
language somewhat. Phil, however, was an exception, and could
manage to speak English a little, though not as well as he could
understand it.
"What for I go?" he asked, a little distrustfully.

"My young master wants to hear you play on your fiddle," said the
servant. "He's sick, and can't come out."
"All right!" said Phil, using one of the first English phrases he had
caught. "I will go."
"Come along, then."
Phil followed his guide into the basement, thence up two flight of stairs,
and along a handsome hall into a chamber. The little fiddler, who had
never before been invited into a fine house, looked with admiration at
the handsome furniture, and especially at the pictures upon the wall, for,
like most of his nation, he had a love for whatever was beautiful,
whether in nature or art.
The chamber had two occupants. One, a boy of twelve years, was lying
in a bed, propped up by pillows. His thin, pale face spoke of long
sickness, and contrasted vividly with the brilliant brown face of the
little Italian boy, who seemed the perfect picture of health. Sitting
beside the bed was a lady of middle age and pleasant expression. It was
easy to see by the resemblance that she was the mother of the sick boy.
Phil looked from one to the other, uncertain what was required of him.
"Can you speak English?" asked Mrs. Leigh.
"Si, signora, a little," answered our hero.
"My son is sick, and would like to hear you play a little."
"And sing, too," added the sick boy, from the bed.
Phil struck up the song he had been singing in the street, a song well
known to all who have stopped to listen to the boys of his class, with
the refrain, "Viva Garibaldi." His voice was clear and melodious, and
in spite of the poor quality of his instrument, he sang with so much
feeling that the effect was agreeable.
The sick boy listened with evident pleasure, for he, too, had a taste for

music.
"I wish I could understand Italian," he said, "I think it must be a good
song."
"Perhaps he can sing some English song," suggested Mrs. Leigh.
"Can you sing in English?" she asked.
Phil hesitated a moment, and then broke into the common street ditty,
"Shoe fly, don't bouder me," giving a quaint sound to the words by his
Italian accent.
"Do you know any more?" asked Henry Leigh, when our hero had
finished.
"Not English," said Phil, shaking his head.
"You ought to learn more."
"I can play more," said Phil, "but I know