 | Dukesborough tales |  |
THE ORGAN-GRINDER.
The kindest and the best.”
WHEN I am thinking of those old times at Dukesborough,
my mind often recurs to a person whom, although not a
resident of that neighborhood, yet, as I never saw him elsewhere, I
have always associated with it. He made a very deep impression upon
me: so much so, indeed, that I have had, ever since I knew him, something
like a fondness for his class. I am not likely, and I am sure
that I have no desire to lose the old feeling that this one led me to
feel. The music sounded so strange and mournful the first time I
heard it in the grove at our gate, and the man was so strange looking,
so pale and wan, that even now, in my old age, whenever I hear one
of his class, especially if he be a foreigner, I feel much of the impressions
of the old days. Many pence have I given to organ-grinders in
my time, and I expect to give more as long as I continue to live.
They are so poor and so taciturn, and seem so harmless. Since I
have read in the books and found to be true what my poor friend used
to tell me about the great old bards, and after them the minstrels, my
mind became fond of connecting these poor wandering musicians with
those famous characters of bygone ages, and thus I learned to pity
and to respect them as the last representatives of a class some of
whom were illustrious and all of whom were beloved.
There seems to me ever an unchanging sadness, not only in their
appearance and deportment, but in all their music. The plaintive
airs they bring from their homes across the sea, are not less sad than
those, whether they be meant to be lively or plaintive, which they find
strive to be gay. Upon their poor instruments and with their poor
renderings, not only do the latter lose their native gaiety, but the effort
to preserve it imparts a sadness which is sometimes piteous. When
a man has to make merry in order to get bread to eat, and when the
bread comes slowly and in insufficient quantities even after the merry-making,
the latter must lose most of its power to make us laugh. So
I seldom can pass one of these persons without dropping into his till
the mite which I cannot easily keep when I consider how much more
the gain will be to him than the loss will be to me. Then I have
found that such trifling losses in due time bring me gains in many
ways. And then again, these little contributions, perhaps, I make as
often as otherwise out of regard for the memory of an old friend.
The individual of whom I am speaking had an air and a gait
superior to most of those of his class whom I have seen since. His
features were well formed and handsome, and his eyes were of extraordinary
brightness. His clothes, though very thin and worn, were
well fitting and had once been fine. It was on a day late in October
that I first saw him. We resided about four miles from Dukesborough,
near the public road; our house surrounded by a grove of oak and
chestnut trees. We were at dinner when for the first time I heard that
strange music. I was startled by what seemed to be no earthly
sounds, and with an exclamation, looked at my father. My mother,
too, was surprised; for though she had heard such before, it had been
seldom, and never at any place nearer than Augusta.
“Oh,” said my father, “I forgot to tell you that I saw an organ-grinder
in Dukesborough yesterday, and that I supposed he would be
along here to-day. Indeed, I asked him to stop as he should pass up
the road.”
We went out, and there he stood. He made a respectful salutation
to us, and continued turning his instrument. I looked and listened
with an interest I never had felt before. Young as I was, I could see
in his pale face the signs of deep suffering. By his side was a sweet-looking
little girl six or seven years old, who sang two or three little
songs in her native tongue. She, too, was pale and thin. Poverty
and wandering and suffering in many ways had imparted a serious
and oldish expression, which, however, was not inconsistent with uncommon
beauty. Her sadness was most tender, and contrasted much
with her father's sternness, which sometimes even appeared almost
his organ his teeth occasionally would become set, and his eyes
wandered up and down the road. I noticed that he frequently lifted
and gazed with painful interest at his left hand, which had lost its last
two fingers; and then I noticed that when the child, whose eyes at
such times were fully turned upon him with tender anxiety, would
address him, his features would at once relax their rigidity, and he
would answer her cheerfully and even gaily.
We gave them their dinner. Immediately afterwards the man rose
to depart; but my father, noticing how much they needed rest, invited
them to remain for the afternoon and night. The man seemed surprised
and touched by the invitation. He looked concernedly at the
child, and they spoke a few words together in Italian. How sweetly
to my ears sounded those first words I had ever heard of this language!
At first the invitation was declined, but upon my father's pressing it
upon them, and especially upon his urging that the child needed rest,
her father concluded to remain.
There was in the corner of the grounds a double frame-house, in
one room of which the overseer slept. In the other, besides a box of
tools which were kept for plantation uses, was a bed, which stood there
for the service of poor travellers who might happen to be overtaken by
night before they could reach the village. In this the two were
lodged. As long as it could be done without too great embarrassment,
my father kept them in our sitting-room. Finding that the
Italian spoke English very well, and suspecting that he had been a
great sufferer, he tried to obtain some knowledge of his history; but
the man seemed so averse to allusions to himself that nothing could be
elicited from him. But I well remember how charmed I was in listening
as he spoke of Italy, its skies and vineyards, and then of the deep sea
over which he had crossed, and the large cities he had visited here.
On the next morning, when he was ready to depart, my father took his
hand with cordiality and thus spoke:
“You have not always been what you are. You have had great
sufferings of some sort. I hoped last night you would tell me
something about them, supposing it possible that I might relieve you
in some small degree. I will help you if I can at any time. Whatever
you may need, come to me for it hereafter.”
The poor man looked into my father's face, and then he began to
weep. In a moment more he brushed his eyes, and hastily lifting his
My father looked long and compassionately towards him.
“He has indeed suffered much. So has the child. Neither of them
can bear such a life long. He is evidently a man of education, and
has seen better times. I wish he had stayed. But I suppose we must
all pursue our destiny.”
It was about the middle of January following that my father and I
were returning late in the afternoon from a walk in one of the fields
where the hands were at work. We were crossing the public road,
near which several wagons laden with cotton were encamped for the
night. The day was very, very cold. Just as we were passing we
heard the sounds of an organ, and looking to the camp, which was in
the corner of a grove opposite our dwelling, we observed the Italian.
The child was not with him. A very marked change had occurred in
both his manner and appearance. His health had evidently much declined,
but his restlessness and sternness were gone, and his countenance
wore an expression of contentment and even of happiness.
When he saw my father he suddenly stopped, placed his wounded
hand upon his closed eyes for a moment, then removed it and looked
dreamily at us. The next moment his face put on a sad smile.
“Oh, yes,” he said, “it is the good Signor. I hope it has been well
with him.”
He then came up to me, took my hand, and seemed to be trying to
call up something of which I reminded him. Then he let me go, and
a shiver passed throughout his frame. I attributed this to the extreme
cold, and started to ask him about the child; but my father looked at
me to be silent, and then in a tone which had almost as much of command
as of invitation proposed to go to the house. The Italian, without
hesitation, lifted his organ upon his back. He did this with much
difficulty, for he was very weak and cold, and my father assisted him.
Little was said as we approached the house. My father, suspecting
what were his thoughts, made only such general remarks as required
little or no participation on his part. When we entered our sitting-room,
I observed that he was more careful in the disposal of his organ
than he was before. He placed it as gently as he could in a corner of
the room, carefully covered it with a coarse green cloth, and then sat
where he could see it all the while. He frequently looked at it, and
with evident tenderness. When he took his seat by the fire he shivered
most violently, as one usually does when coming out of extreme cold.
ate it; and my heart has been seldom so touched as by the sight of
the struggle which he made between the anxiety to gratify a hunger
that was excessive and the fear of being thought ignorant of good
manners. After supper he seemed to need rest so sorely that we sent
him to his old room, after first having it well warmed. When he
entered this room he looked abstractedly around him for a moment,
and seemed to be considering where he should place his organ, which he
had taken with him from the mansion. At last he seemed to be satisfied
with a position which could be seen as well from the place where
he was to sit and from the bed when he should be resting upon it.
The next morning the cold had increased. The sleet had fallen
during the night, and the trees and the earth were covered with ice.
The Italian rose betimes; and we were awakened by the sound of his
organ, which he was turning as he sat in the door of his chamber.
“I thought I should give you a matin-song the morning before I
should leave, in return for food and rest,” he said cheerfully to my
father as he went to summon him to breakfast.
“Thank you: it was very sweet. But we cannot let you go this
morning.”
The man looked a little alarmed.
“Oh, no,” continued my father, “not yet. After a while you can
go. But now you need more rest, and it is cold.”
He said nothing, but after breakfast he rose again and was making
ready to start. My father laid his hand gently upon his organ as he
essayed to raise it, and then said:
“Listen to me, my friend. I am neither a proud man nor a very
rich one. I have been poor, too; and now that I am so no longer, I like
to assist when I can those who need some things which they have not.
Where are you going? Are you going home?”
He looked at my father and answered with what would have been a
sarcasm if it had not been so sad:
“Men like you must know that men like me have no homes.”
“But you have had a home, and you are not one to endure what
you are suffering now. You are sick; indeed you are ill. You do
not need much, and it will not cost me much to bestow what you do
need. You do not, I repeat, need much; but you need it sorely, and
you need it now. I do with you as I would have you do with me if I
were sick and in need, and you had a shelter to offer me from this
which I owe even more to Heaven than to you.”
Noticing that he wavered, my father continued his urging, and said
that besides he would like for me to hear him speak more about his
native country and of the Italian music and poetry; that if he would
stay for a few days only, besides getting the rest that he so much
needed, he could benefit me to such a degree that the obligation, if
any, would really be on our part. He looked fondly upon me, and I
asked him to stay. Several times I asked him.
“And thou? Dost thou so desire indeed?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Then I remain — but for a little while — a few days.”
Although he had consented to remain, yet for a day or two he
seemed restless and abstracted, with only a few intervals of serenity.
During this time he preserved much of the constraint and reticence
which he had heretofore practiced. My father was very delicate in his
conversation and deportment, and after a day or two more our guest
began to seem as if he was among those who really felt a kindly interest
for him. He became especially fond of me. At all hours, when
about the house, except at meals, he sat in his own room. I spent
much of the time with him there, and he would play for me, and talk
with me with increased freedom. Although he was more and more
cheerful, yet his physical condition did not improve. He ate little, and
we began to notice that as night came it brought with it a fever. It would
pass away by the morning, and his cheeks grew more and more sunken.
By degrees he became more communicative, and at last my father succeeded
in leading him to speak of himself.
It was on the night of the fifth day of his sojourn. At supper he
seemed less disposed to be silent than ever before, and even showed
a desire to be chatty. One or two playful remarks he made to my
mother, of whom hitherto he had been shy. He readily accepted her
invitation to linger in our company, and after we had been sitting
together for some time around the bright log-fire, and had talked of
general matters, in answer to the desire delicately expressed by my
father he began to speak without reserve.
His name was Antonio. He had been an advocate of Brindisi, his
native place, enjoyed a reasonable success, and married a young lady
of good family who had lost their fortune. They were both much
devoted to music, she to the piano and he to the violin and violoncello.
before the means which he had accumulated before marriage were
nearly exhausted. After seven years the lady died, leaving a young
daughter six years old. Grief for her death, and the small hope of
being then able to return in that place to the old habits of business,
determined him to remove to America with his child, and pursue the
profession of a musician. Of his success in this scheme he had not
entertained a doubt, because, as he modestly assured us, he was
considered, especially as a violinist, inferior only to the most distinguished
performers of his native country.
In pursuance of this purpose he had arrived in New York the last
winter. But for the humane intentions with which my father had led
him to speak of himself, he would have repented when he noticed the
pain and even the anguish with which for a while he spoke of his
subsequent adventures. He had stopped, on account of his slender
means, at an obscure tavern in the lower portion of the city. On the
first night after his arrival an adjoining house caught fire while its
occupants were asleep. He was aroused by the screams of his hostess,
who had been the first to discover it, and had called to him for assistance
in rescuing the family who were domiciled in the burning building.
The flames raged with such rapidity that the rescue depended solely
upon himself. He succeeded in saving them (a widow and three
young children), but at the imminent risk of his own life. The poor
woman, after emerging with her children, so bemoaned the loss of her
household goods, and especially of a small bag of silver, that he
re-entered in order to recover it. He reached with difficulty the
chamber in which it was kept, seized it, opened the window, threw it
down, and other means of escape being now cut off, he essayed to let
himself down from the same window. While hanging upon the sill,
and as he was waiting for the women to place underneath some bedding
upon which he could alight, the sash suddenly dropped upon his left
hand, and before he could be released its two lower fingers had been
lost.
I can never forget his looks or his words while he spoke of his
feelings upon that night.
“The loss of those fingers,” he said, as he lifted his disabled hand,
“was the loss of the only thing in this world belonging to me that was
of value to me or to any other person. I knew that, and felt it all as
I was hanging to the window. I do not — will the Signor — and the
it — and — yes, I think I shall forget it soon.”
He rose abruptly and walked several times across the room. My
father begged him to be seated, and let us speak of something else.
“No, no, no!” he resumed, becoming calmed, and retaking his
seat. “No; the Signor has been kind — oh so kind! — and he must
hear. As I was hanging by those fingers, and tried in vain to release
them with my right hand, I remember how I calculated how much
they were to me, and what ruin their loss would bring upon me,
and —”
He paused a moment, and in the lowest and most solemn tone
asked:
“I had a little child with me here? Yes, yes, she was with me
here. Does the Signora remember the child?”
My mother bowed her head.
“Yes. Teresa. Her name was Teresa. A pretty child she was:
but we will not speak of that now. I believe I was saying that I
calculated as I was hanging at the window what the loss of those
fingers would bring. I did not feel any other pain. There was no
pain except in my heart. I remember thinking while I was hanging
there how much I would give if that were my right hand instead of my
left; and I remember that I thought, although I knew that I was even
in much danger of losing my life, yet if I could make my two hands
exchange places, I would be happier, up there hanging by the window,
than any other man ever had been or ever could be. Oh! I felt that I
could better afford to lose both my eyes and both my feet than those
two little fingers. My agony when I felt them giving way was greater
than it had been when I saw my wife breathing her last. I remember
that I then compared this feeling with that, and how strange it all was.
At last my own weight and the struggles I made tore me from them,
and I fell into the arms of those who had arrived in time to assist in
breaking my fall. I rose immediately, and attempted to climb the
wall in order to recover what I had lost. But I could not, and in a
few moments the flames had enveloped all. While I was hanging
there I heard Teresa's screams, and I wondered if she were thinking
that the only thing belonging to her father that was of value to her
was about to be lost. When I had thus descended, the child then
screamed with delight, and I pitied her out of the depths of my soul.”
After an interval of several moments, in which he labored with his
I omit. When the poor man had gotten thus far, he seemed to be
fond of dwelling upon the incidents of his history. After trying in
vain to find employment in New York, he removed to Philadelphia,
and thence to Baltimore. The most of his countrymen, though disposed
to assist, had other claims upon their charity, and besides were
of small means. He was forced to sell his musical instruments in
order to pay his board-bills, and then as a last resort he purchased the
hand-organ which he then carried. Laboring under the sense of
degradation in being reduced to the poor place of an organ-grinder,
he was without the art even to make that available except for the
procurement of the barest necessaries. His greatest anxieties were of
course for his child.
“I had hoped,” he said, “to bring her up to be a distinguished
singer; and she would have been, had means been afforded for her
education. When I found that the dear child, instead of this, must
labor with me at what I then thought was so poor an occupation, and
labor for subsistence not only for herself but for me, my heart was
crushed. To think that she must wander up and down with me, and
sing for bread to listless and often to vulgar ears the little songs that
her mother had taught her! — How variously and capriciously the rich
conduct themselves to the poor such as me! Sometimes my heart has
been filled to overflowing with gratitude by the reception of kindness
which seemed almost like the Mother of Christ. At other times I
have gone mad; yes, entirely mad — no, not quite, but almost mad —
from the insults which our poverty has received. I have seen two
ladies, both of whom were beautiful, and when Teresa looked to them
for compensation for her little song, and the one began to open her
purse, the other laughed at her for her weakness, and with insulting
words to us, dragged her companion away; and then my little one
would look into my eyes, and I would look into hers, and I would see
that she was fast growing as old as her father in the knowledge of the
world, and in misery. Oh! the thoughts that used to pass through my
mind as I have been standing out in the cold: and how cold, cold my
darling used to be! She would never tremble, or she would strive not
to tremble; but she was so cold! At first I was near going mad.
But for her sake, I think I should have gone mad. To think, only to
think, if I had gone mad! Would that not have been piteous? — Will
the good Signor and the Signora listen while I tell them some of my
understand —? Yes, I can tell of those thoughts now since my mind
is so much better. At first I came near going mad. That would
have been so piteous that I was saved from it. Praised be the Holy
Virgin, Mother of God!”
He lifted his eyes towards heaven with an expression of profound
gratitude and fervent devotion. Then, with a strange sad smile, he
continued:
“I knew nothing of the hand-organ, and had always regarded it as
a very poor instrument of music. It was so poor, and its tones were
so different from what I had been accustomed to hear and to make,
that I almost abhorred myself for having to carry it within the sound
of human ears. But having lost my fingers, and with them the faculty
to play upon the violin, I must carry it. My own ears became so
wounded by its jarring sounds, that for a long time they became to be
deaf to all others excepting the voice of Teresa. For hours and
hours in the cold days in the streets of those Northern cities, I have
turned, and turned, and the discordant notes have grown louder and
louder, until the sounds of human voices, the feet of horses, the wheels
of wagons, were drowned, and I could not have heard the roar of the
cannon, or the thunder, or the hurricane. And yet I heard at such
times, sounds which other ears heard not. Mine ears heard the cries of
the poor of all lands, crying in their several tongues for bread. They
have heard the wailings of exiles, of the desolate and bereaved of all
conditions. They have heard the screams of the condemned of all
prisons, and even the shrieks of every sinner in hell!”
While he thus spoke, although his eyes were lustrous and his pale
cheek grew red, yet his voice was low and calm.
In the succeeding autumn he had wandered with his child to the
South, dreading to encounter again the rigors of a Northern winter.
As the alms which he had been receiving in the Southern cities were
becoming too small for his wants, he went up occasionally into the
country, and it was on one of these visits that we first saw him. For
some time after telling us of these things, he remained silent and
looked constantly and solemnly into the fire which was now subsiding.
Afterwards, he suddenly turned his eyes and said:
“But have I told about the child, Teresa?—the beloved and the
beautiful? No. Then I must tell it. Indeed, yes, I was near going
mad. But I know I was saved from that, because it would have been
except with my organ, for nearly a month. I had grown to be afraid
after the danger of madness passed, that I should die and leave the
child alone; for, although I have been constantly going, yet I think
I have been sick somewhat. Yet I was afraid I might die. But that
would have been too piteous, and I did not. In the cold days of
December, when the snow was on the ground and when the damp was
on the straw where we slept, the thin clothing of Teresa could not
resist the cold by day and by night. And then she took a pneumonia.
I sat by her side for six days, and then she was better. But one day
as the sun was setting, the child who had been gay for some hours
was talking to me of our home across the sea, and then she said that
she had seen in her sleep her mother, and that she was more beautiful
than before, and was clothed all in white, and a star was upon her
forehead, and she carried a palm in her hand, and her face was
shining, oh so gladly, so gladly! And then the child kept repeating
these words, `Oh, so gladly, so gladly,' and her voice grew lower and
lower; and then she whispered one time, `Oh, so gladly, so gladly;'
and then she ceased, and then I took her hand and looked into her
face.”
He lowered his own voice now, and I never saw so solemn and sad
a countenance as when he whispered:
“She was gone from me — gone beyond the seas and beyond the
clouds.” He paused a moment and looked curiously from one to
another of us.
“I believe I told that she died? Yes, yes. Poor little child! It
had been so cold. But I was so lonely afterwards.”
Then his face became bright and he resumed.
“But now, will the Signor believe that since I have been alone, I
have learned to love my organ? One must love something. Now what
is the strangest of all things to me is this, that as soon as I came to
love and appreciate it, it brought to me no more those horrid sounds.
Its tones have become indescribably sweet to me. I cannot tell how
it is; but for the poor airs which it made formerly, it has substituted
others, some old and some new. When I play upon it now I hear the
sweet sounds of my native country, and they have taken a more perfect
melody than of old. There come to me the songs of the reapers on
breezes scented with the new-mown hay. There come the carols of
the birds from amid the orange trees: I hear the song and the oar of
Teresa sang her to sleep upon her lap when the evening was come.
Is not that strange? And my organ, sometimes it becomes, oh so gay,
and it sings me songs of cavaliers, and recites me the lays of the
minstrels of olden days. One afternoon I was playing in the street of
the pretty city on the river. I was standing before a costly mansion,
and there came from my organ one of the old ballads of the Trouvères,
and it sounded so gaily that a fair maiden came to the window, and
she listened and smiled; and then she sent her page to me, and I was
led into the dining-hall, where the fire was burning so bright and
warm. And then she gave me wine, and made a nosegay of flowers
and gave them to me, and while I praised poesy she listened, and was
exceeding beautiful.— But now will all hearken to me? Within these
last days, this organ, it has been giving forth airs that are unlike those
I have heard before. They are so solemn. They are of low tone;
so low, indeed, that one can scarcely hear them. They come as
when standing on the shore of the Adriatic I have heard the solemn
murmurs come from afar over the waves. Then, sometimes, I hear
sounds sweeter yet and more solemn, as it were a harp companied by
soft feminine voices; and they seem to come from the air above me.—
So I must have loved my organ. Holy Virgin! what must I have
done if I had not grown to love something after Teresa left me.”
My parents seeing that through grief and want he had become
partially bereft of reason, became more and more assiduous and tender
in their care of him. He became quite reconciled to remain with us,
and although he seemed not to be conscious of it, he would have been
unable to travel with his organ. He grew quite fond of me, and told
me many things of the old bards and heroes, of knights and ladies of
the chivalrous ages. He would carry his organ to the door of his
chamber and play for a while in the early morning, and again at the
twilight. After a few days the weather became much more mild, and
he and I would walk together in the grove and up and down the road.
He was so gentle that I could lead him anywhere I chose.
Early one bright morning, just as the sun arose, I was awakened by
the sound of his organ. I arose, dressed myself, and went out to
him.
“Good day! good day!” he answered gaily to my salutation; “Beautiful
is this day! See the sun how he shines! I awakened early and
came out to meet him. Wilt thou not listen for one song of my
sad.”
He turned the handle, and was playing an air that I had often heard.
As he played, he looked at me inquiringly.
“Dost thou not recognise it? Ah, the boy is too young to have
studied the music and the legends of the brave old days! That is the
great Richard, and Blondel the minstrel. Shall I repeat the words
along with the air? I do not sing, thou knowest; but I will rehearse.
Dost remember the scene? Yes, I have told it to thee. It is before
a castle of the Duke of Austria. The King, upon his return from
Holy Land, has been taken captive, and is imprisoned in this castle.
Blondel has been seeking him in all lands, for thou knowest that the
minstrels had access to all places. This song the King and Blondel
had composed together, and they would sing, as the muses of old times
loved most the song, in alternate verses. When the minstrel played
the former part, then he heard the other part from within the castle
walls. Now listen to the minstrel:
None view without delight;
But still so cold an air
No passion can excite:
Yet this I patient see
While all are shunned like me.'
If favor she divide,
And smile on all around,
Unwilling to decide:
I'd rather hatred bear
Than love with others share.'
so long.”
Two days after this, when I arose and went to his chamber, although he
was up and sitting at the door and the morning was even sweeter
than before, the gaiety which he usually seemed to feel at this hour
was away, and his face was full of solemnity. I led him into the
grove. We went slowly, for he had now grown very weak. The
wagons were going along in unusual numbers this morning. He
looked at them attentively, and as we neared the road he lifted his
said in subdued tones:
“It is a funeral procession.”
“No,” I answered.
“It must be a procession. See how solemnly they are marching!
Lo! there are two processions! Yes, yes! there are two processions!
One is going up and one is going down. The dead, even like the
living, travel in differing ways. Yes, yes! there are two; and one is
going up, and one is going down.”
I led him back again, and, by my father's directions that I should
not leave him, I stayed with or near him throughout the day. In the
afternoon he lay upon his bed. He had said nothing to me since the
morning, but had lain through the afternoon looking alternately at his
organ and out upon the sky. My father frequently passed near the
door, but none of us spoke.
The sun was setting. Through the window the invalid could see it.
He watched it until it was down. He then turned to me and said:
“And now the good Signor thy father may come. All may come.”
We all sat in the chamber.
“It is good that ye be here. I had no music the morn.
“I was weak and aweary.
“But now before the sunset I have been listening to my organ. Is
it not strange?
“The music was low, but mine ears did hear.
“Not the gay sounds.
“But the tranquil.
“The songs of the reapers.
“Oh! I could scent the new hay.
“The carols of the birds.
“In the orange trees.
“The songs that come from the air above me.
“The voice of Teresa.
“And Teresa's mother.
“Along with heavenly harpings.”
He lay awhile silent.
“Wilt thou take my hand, Signor?” My father was about to take
his right hand.
“Not that: the other.”
Then my father took his left. He smiled and said:
“Thanks! thanks and blessings for all — and forever.
“Hist!” said he, suddenly, “Hearest thou not? Hearest thou?”
“Yes,” answered my father.
“And seest thou? and seest thou? Behold! they are at the door!
They have returned to me.”
An ineffable gladness was upon his face.
My father laid his lacerated hand upon his breast, and as he took
the other to place by its side, the wanderer joined those silent messengers,
and departed to the abodes beyond the seas and beyond the
clouds.
We buried him behind the garden among our own dead; and my
father, as long as he lived, tended his grave like the rest.
| Dukesborough tales | |