The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1894-11-24
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her nest only, and was always in the
audience at the Sings; while Father
Hazen was the mainstay of the
chorus, paying the conductor the old
fashioned scrupulous attention, and
looking beaming request for sympa-
thy from his neighbor after fine
passage.
If Mr.. and Mrs. Hazen looked for
ward to the concert with pleasure
because they had enjoyed such
things before, their son Roberts an
ticipations took color from nothing
less than the descriptions he had
heard of the heavenly harps. He
cared more for music than for jack
knife or Indian story. He inherited
all his parents taste, and added
special passion for stringed instru-
ments, which already showed itself
in his handling of his toy violin. All
the morning he had watched the
singers come and go from the hall
which was across the railroad track
from his own stately, white -pillared
home. He had feverish cold, and
the day threatened a chilly rain. 1t
set in at noon, and the September air
grew dangerously raw and foggy.
The singers began to put scarfs
round their threats as they left the
hall; and Father Hazen came in from
the morning rehearsal, saying the
dampness made the instruments out
of tune, and he feared Boy could not
go to the concert.
Robert knew what that meant.
When his parents were most happy
in each other and in him, it was "our
boy" when they separately petted
him, it was "my boy" but in mo-
ments of denial, like the present, it
was short and sharp, "boy." He did
not try to tease now. 1t took all his
strength to keep back his cough;
and this effort to seem well was so
pathetic that his father finally caught
him up, saying:-
"My boy, cough it out. and feel
better Father'll tuck you under his
coat, and carry you over to the hall
tonight"
And then followed the disagree
ment recorded at the beginning of
this story.
But Robert went to the concert,
and few ever forgot the picture he
made up on the singers seats, held
tight in his fathers arms, both faces
rapt with delight; while the mother,
from the front settee on the floor,
looked not with pleasure at the solo
lists, but with anxiety at the little face
from whose lips came now and then
a paroxysm of coughing. The next
day the cough had become strangle;
and the Hazens had lost Robert, the
baby who had come so late into their
life that he had frightened it mex
pressibly.
Father Hazen was greatly broken
by the result of his wilfulness, and it
was pitiable to see him changed in a
night SO that he stepped and spoke
like an old man. He tried to take
upon himself all the blame of expos
ing Robert; but, when the neighbors
said, "What pity Mr.. Hazen carried
the child out on such nightw Mrs.
Hazen would reply quietly, "Yes, we
made mistake" And only to them
selves was known the bitterness of
the division in their grief, and why
Mrs. Hazen absented herself from all
gatherings of which music formed a
feature, while Father Hazen went as
usual to the weekly or monthly re-
hearsals.
So the years went on; and it was
again the night of the Milton Sing,
or, as it was now called, the Inter
lachen Musical Festival. Mics Mar
celtic Adams, up at Sunset House,
felt half-ashamed of her interest in
the event. Ever since her baby days
she had been taken to every fine
opera or theatre available; and dot
ing parents had planned that she
should be in Boston for Paderewski,
Beyreuth for Wagner, New York for
Patti. And here she was, twenty-six
years old, so tired of dressing and
dancing at the hotel that she had en-
rolled her name among the singers
at the festival. Her finely-cut face,
the CLEAN of the silver pin in her
hair, the flash of the jewelled clasp
on her cloak, contrasted sharply with
the homespun appearance of the
chorus about her. The woman next
held baby with one hand, her lib
retto with the other; and Marcelite
famed the child, and wondered how
a woman who liked music as that