Fiddle-John's Family by Hjalmar Hjorth Boysen

The life on shipboard did not agree with Fiddle-John. Like a spoiled child, he was restless and unhappy when he was unnoticed. All day long he sat on the top of a coil of rope in the forecastle of the ship and sang. The forecastle was often deserted, and there were probably not many among the emigrants who would have been capable of judging whether his voice was in any way extraordinary. And yet, one there was who found an untold amount of comfort in listening to that clear, sweet tenor of Fiddle-John's, and that one was the Savoyard boy. It had been his constant effort, since his encounter with the purser, to make himself as inconspicuous as possible, and it would have gratified him much if he had possessed some means of making the bear invisible. As the forecastle was the least visited portion of the ship, he had chosen to hide himself there behind the anchor-cable.

He trembled whenever anyone approached, and threw the end of the tarpaulin which covered the deck-freight over his friend, the bear. The only people whose company did not incommode him were Fiddle-John and his children, for whom he testified his devotion by smiles and gestures and all sorts of endearing Italian diminutives, which, on account of his caressing tones, even a dumb brute could not have failed to appreciate. After a long and exciting pantomime, Truls ascertained that his name was Annibale Petrucchio and that his bear gloried in the name of Garibaldi.