Two hours later he issued from the house, and set his face in the
direction of the museum--a face full of excitement still, but full also
of pain, because he had no money, and saw no chance of getting any. It
was a dull time of the year for his mother's work. Only the day before
she had been paid a month's earnings, and already the money had been
laid out for the frugal expenses of the household. It would be a long
time before any more would come in, and in the mean time the exhibition
of wax figures would have been moved to some other town. When he had
told her that the parson had said that she must go to see them, she had
smiled fondly at him from beside her loom, and quietly shaken her head
with inward resignation; but when he told her the parson had said _he_
must be sure to go too, the smile had faded into an expression of fixed
sadness.
On his way down town he passed the little music store of Mr. Leuba,
which was one block this side of the Kentucky Hotel. He was all
eagerness to reach the museum, but his ear caught the sounds of the
violin, and he forgot everything else in his desire to go in and speak
with Tom, for Tom was his lord and master.
"Tom, are you going to see the wax figures?" he cried, with trembling
haste, curling himself on top of the keg of nails in his accustomed
corner of the little lumber-room. But Tom paid no attention to the
question or the questioner, being absorbed in executing an intricate
passage of "O Thou Fount of every Blessing!" For the moment David
forgot his question himself, absorbed likewise in witnessing this
envied performance.
When Tom had finished, he laid the violin across his knees and wiped
his brow with his shirt-sleeves. "Don't you know that you oughtn't to
talk to me when I'm performing?" he said, loftily, still not deigning
to look at his offending auditor. "Don't you know that it disturbs a
fiddler to be spoken to when he's performing?"
[Illustration: "EXECUTING AN INTRICATE PASSAGE."]
Tom was an overgrown, rawboned lad of some fifteen years, with stubby
red hair, no eyebrows, large watery blue eyes, and a long neck with a
big Adam's apple.
"I didn't mean to interrupt you, Tom," said David, in a tone of the
deepest penitence. "You know that I'd rather hear you play than
anything."
"Father got the thousand-dollar prize," said Tom coldly, accepting the
apology for the sake of the compliment.
"Oh, _Tom_! I'm so glad! _Hurrah!_" shouted David, waving his old blue
cap around his head, his face transfigured with joy, his heart leaping
with a sudden hope, and now at last he would get the violin.
"What are _you_ glad for?" said Tom, with dreadful severity. "He's _my_
father; he's not _your_ father;" and for the first time he bestowed a
glance upon the little figure curled up on the nail keg, and bending
eagerly towards him with clasped hands.
"I _know_ he's _your_ father, Tom, but--"
"Well, then, what are you _glad_ for?" insisted Tom. "You're not going
to get any of the money."
"I know _that_, Tom," said David, coloring deeply, "but--"
"Well, then, what _are_ you glad for?"
"I don't think I'm so _very_ glad, Tom," replied David, sorrowfully.
But Tom had taken up the bow and was rubbing the resin on it. He used
a great deal of resin in his playing, and would often proudly call
David's attention to how much of it would settle as a white dust under
the bridge. David was too well used to Tom's rebuffs to mind them long,
and as he now looked on at this resining process, the sunlight came
back into his face.
"Please let me try it once, Tom--just _once_." Experience had long ago
taught him that this was asking too much of Tom; but with the new hope
that the violin might now soon become his, his desire to handle it was
ungovernable.
"Now look here, David," replied Tom, with a great show of kindness
in his manner, "I'd let you try it once, but you'd spoil the tone.
It's taken me a long time to get a good tone into this fiddle, and
you'd take it all out the very first whack. As soon as you learn to
get a good tone out of it, I'll let you play on it. Don't you _know_
you'd spoil it, if I was to let you try it _now_?" he added, suddenly
wheeling with tremendous energy upon his timid petitioner.
"I'm afraid I would, Tom," replied David, with a voice full of anguish.
"But just listen to me," said Tom; and taking up the violin, he
rendered the opening passage of "O Thou Fount of every Blessing!"
Scarcely had he finished when a customer entered the shop, and he
hurried to the front, leaving the violin and the bow on the chair that
he had quitted.
No sooner was he gone than the little figure slipped noiselessly from
its perch, and hobbling quickly to the chair on which the violin
lay, stood beside it in silent love. Touch it he durst not; but his
sensitive, delicate hands passed tremblingly over it, and his eyes
dwelt upon it with unspeakable longing. Then, with a sigh, he turned
away, and hastened to the front of the shop. Tom had already dismissed
his customer, and was standing in the door, looking down the street in
the direction of the Kentucky Hotel, where a small crowd had collected
around the entrance of the museum.
As David stepped out upon the sidewalk, it was the sight of this crowd
that recalled him to a new sorrow.
"Tom," he cried, with longing, "are you going to see the wax figures?"
"Of course I'm going," he replied, carelessly. "We're all going."
"When, Tom?" asked David, with breathless interest.
"Whenever we want to, of course," replied Tom. "I'm not going just
once; I'm going as often as I like."
"Why don't you go now, Tom? It's so hot--they might melt."
This startling view of the case was not without its effect on Tom,
although a suggestion from such a source was not to be respected. He
merely threw his eyes up towards the heavens and said, sturdily: "You
ninny! they'll not melt. Don't you see it's going to rain and turn
cooler?"
"I'll bet you _I'd_ not wait for it to turn cooler. I'll bet you _I'd_
be in there before you could say Jack Roberson, if _I_ had a quarter,"
said David, with resolution.