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Read Ebook: John of the Woods by Brown Abbie Farwell
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Ebook has 724 lines and 37506 words, and 15 pages
Nearer and nearer came the speck. At last Gigi saw that it was a cart drawn by a team of white oxen, which accounted for the slowness of the pace. He sighed with relief. This at least he need not fear. As it came nearer, Gigi saw that in the cart were a woman and three little boys of about his own age. And presently, as he watched the lumbering team curiously, he recognized the very woman who had given him the silver piece an hour before. These, too, were the little boys who had faced him in the crowd. A sudden hope sprang into Gigi's heart. Perhaps she would help him to escape. Perhaps she would at least give him a lift on his way. He decided to risk it.
THE OX-CART
Gigi waited until the cart was nearly opposite, and he could hear the voices of the woman and the children talking and laughing together. Then he crept out from behind the stack and stepped to the side of the road.
The great, lumbering oxen eyed him curiously, but did not pause. The children stopped talking, and one of them pointed Gigi out to his mother.
"Look, Mama! A little boy!"
"Hello!" cried the woman in her hearty, kind voice, stopping the team. "What are you doing here, little lad?"
She did not recognize Gigi at once in his long traveling cloak. But suddenly he threw back the folds of it and showed the green tights underneath.
"Do you remember?" he said. "You told me to run away. Well, I have done it!"
"It is, the little tumbler! The tumbler, Mama!" cried the boys in one breath, clapping their hands with pleasure.
But the woman stared blankly. "My faith!" she said at last. "You lost no time in taking the hint. How did you get here so soon? We were homeward bound when you had scarcely finished tumbling. Now here you are before us, on foot!"
"I ran," said Gigi simply. "I came not by the highway, which is long and winding, but down steep streets like stairs, which brought me here very quickly."
"See the bruise on his cheek, mother!" cried Beppo, the littlest boy, pointing. The good woman saw it, and her eyes flashed.
"Oh! Oh!" she clucked. "The wicked men! Did they do that to you?"
"Yes. And they will do more if they catch me now," said Gigi. "I know. They have beaten me many times till I could not move. But if they catch me this time, they will kill me because I ran away. Will you help me?"
"Why, what can I do?" asked the woman uneasily, looking up and down the road. "If they should come now! You belong to them. I shall get myself into trouble."
Gigi's face fell. "Very well," he said. "Good-by. You were kind to me to-day, and I thought--perhaps--" He turned away, with his lips quivering.
"Stay!" cried the woman. "Where is the silver piece which I gave you? You can at least buy food and a night's lodging with that."
"They took it from me," said Gigi. "I had to give it up because there was so little money in the tambourine,--only coppers. They said people would not pay because I fell; and so they would beat me again."
"They took it from you! The thieves!" cried the woman angrily. "Nay, then I will indeed help you to escape. Climb in here, boy, among my youngsters. We have still an hour's ride down the road, and you shall go so far at least."
Gigi climbed into the cart and nestled down among the children. The woman clucked to the oxen, and forthwith they moved on down the highroad. The shadows were beginning to darken, and the birds had ceased to sing.
"Hiew! Hiew! Come up! Come up!" the woman urged on the great white oxen. "It is growing late, and the good man will wonder why we are so long returning from market. This has been our holiday," she explained to Gigi. "And to think that the Tumblers should have happened to come to the market this very day! The children will never forget!"
Beppo had been staring at Gigi with fascinated eyes. "How did you learn?" he asked suddenly. "Could I do it too?"
Gigi laughed. For the first time that day his face lost its sadness, and the brown spot on his eyelid, falling into one of the little creases, gave him a very mischievous look. He seemed to wink. Immediately the whole cartful of peasants began to laugh with him, they knew not why. They could not help it. This was what happened whenever Gigi laughed, as he seldom did.
But soon Gigi grew grave once more. "Why do you want to learn?" he asked. "It does not make me happy. For oh! they are so cruel!"
"Do they beat you much?" asked Paolo sympathetically. Gigi nodded his head with a sigh. "Very much," he said. "I am always black and blue."
"Am I too big to learn?" demanded Giovanni, the oldest boy, who was perhaps twelve and heavier than Gigi. "When did you begin?"
Gigi grew thoughtful. "Ever since I remember, I have tumbled," he said. "Ever since I was a baby, before I could even turn a somersault, they tossed me back and forth between them and made me kiss my hand to the people who stood about."
"And did they beat you then?" asked Beppo, doubling up his fists.
Gigi sighed again. "They always beat me," he said simply. "Whatever I did, they beat me when they were ugly. And that was always."
"Do you belong to them?" asked the woman suddenly. "They are Gypsies, black men. But you are fair like the people of the North. Where did they get you, Gigi?"
Gigi shook his head. "I do not know," he said. "I have belonged to them always, I think."
"Hark!" said Mother Margherita suddenly. "What's that?"
There was a faint noise far off on the road behind them. Gigi trembled. "They are coming for me!" he said. "What shall I do?"
"No, no," said the woman. "I do not fear that. It is too soon, surely. But it is growing dark here in the valley. This is a lonely spot, and there are many wicked men about besides your masters, Gigi."
"Thieves and villains!" whispered Giovanni. "Oh, mother, hide the bag of silver that you got at market!"
"Sh! Sh!" warned the mother sharply. "Do not speak of it! Hiew, hiew! Go on! go on!" And she urged the oxen faster.
But the great beasts would not hasten their pace for her. The noise came nearer. They could hear that it was the trotting of hoofs.
"There is only one animal," said Gigi, whose ears were keen. "I can hear his four feet patter. I think it is the donkey!"
"I can see him now!" cried Paolo. "It is a little man on a donkey. He is bending forward and beating it hard."
Gigi strained his eyes to see. "It is Tonio!" he whispered fearfully. "I know it! Oh, the Hunchback will kill me when he finds me! And he will take your silver, too!"
"Sh! Sh!" commanded the mother. "He shall not find you. Here, take this bag, Gigi. It will be safer with you. And here, creep under my skirts and keep close. He will never guess where you are!"
Mother Margherita spread out her generous draperies, which luckily were both long and wide, and Gigi crept under them, being wholly covered. The other boys huddled close, shivering with a not wholly unpleasant excitement. This was an adventure indeed for a holiday!
The rider drew nearer and nearer, lashing the poor donkey unmercifully. At last they could see his face, red and lowering.
"Halt!" he cried suddenly. "You in the cart there, halt!"
THE HUNCHBACK
The oxen stopped. The cart came to a standstill. The boys huddled closer, and Gigi's heart beat like a tambourine. He was sure that Tonio would hear it.
"What do you want?" asked Mother Margherita, and her usually kind voice was harsh.
"You seem to have a load of young cubs there," shouted Tonio. "Have you got my boy, Gigi the Tumbler, among them? Some one has stolen the little monster."
"What are you talking about!" answered Mother Margherita sharply. "I am a respectable countrywoman returning from market-day with my children. What business have I with tumblers and vagrants!"
"That I'll see for myself, woman," said Tonio, jumping unsteadily down from the donkey and approaching the cart. Tonio had been drinking, and his little eyes were red and fierce.
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