t he was earning an honest
living.

Everybody in the little neighborhood of Lazzaroni knew and loved Old
Beppo--why he was always called _Old_ Beppo, I never knew, unless it was
because his home-life had given him a subdued, downcast look, and his
shoulders were more rounded and bent than even his heavy organ would
have made them if he could have had a little comfort and cheer in the
poor place he called home. Nina was a peevish, querulous wife--always
finding fault, and never satisfied with Beppo's earnings; true, it was
little enough he brought at night after trudging all day with his
hand-organ, and as he approached the little rookery at the end of the
day his steps grew languid and heavy, for he knew his only welcome would
be Nina's grumbling, fretful greeting; and poor Old Beppo, after
unstrapping his burden and eating his poor meal of macaroni, found rest,
not on the little seat outside his own door with his wife and children,
but on the sand-bank, or on a neighbor's doorseat where he could smoke
his pipe in peace beyond the sound of Nina's croaking, scolding voice.
The two boys were like their mother, and Beppo found little comfort in
them, so it must be confessed that when in the summer of 1860 Nina was
called away to a country where Old Beppo hoped she would not find so
much to scold about, his grief was not inconsolable, and a year later he
found a more congenial companion in a trim, pretty little widow whose
husband was taken off by the same scourge that carried Nina away. Italia
had one little boy who was, like his mother, amiable and pretty, with
the beautiful great black eyes of a true Italian, and all the
fascinating ways of a pretty child of nature. He might have been used
for a model of Italian child-beauty.

Old Beppo spent two peaceful and happy years with Italia, and then came
again the summer pestilence and poor Italia was one of the victims.
Little Dino was heartbroken at the loss of his mother, and Old Beppo,
after trying in vain to console the little boy, decided to take him,
with the two half-brothers, to America, as much perhaps to change the
scene for little Dino as to better his condition in our land of hope and
promise. Dino played the violin and accompanied Old Beppo in his
wanderings over the country for a time, until the old man became
restless and unhappy and longed for his native air. Dino had recovered
his childish spirits, and was happy in the freedom of our free sunny
summer weathe