Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1903-11-06

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thought of that doctor, who, seeing at
a glance that he was dying from sheer
starvation, had not hesitated to give
the two pence" of the Good Samari-
tan.
THE mere money! may repay some
day" he thought; 'but the action,
never! Whether n pound or fifty at
the last day. it will speak-it will have
d thousand voices. God will hear
Them
AS soon as he could crawl, he
dragged himself to the piano. If even
now he could only be in time-time to
WIN that grand prize offered. by the
Conservative at Florence for the best
setting of a song to words supplied by
them-e250 English money. with the
situation of harmony master at a largo
salary too, perhaps, the cleverest group
OF students the world had ever seen.
There was an exquisite but madden
ingly elusive melody in his brain-an
angel song; but his head was weak
from illness, and it was evidently
doomed to remain one of those untold
dream witcheries which thrall most
soul musicians at times and draw away
their thoughts to cloudland. He could
not hum it; could not find its begin=
ming or end, though he tried ZACH note
In the gamut; but he felt it, he had
dreamed 1t; some day-too late, per-
haps, to make use of it in this world
1T would come to him in it's full, glori-
Gus beauty.
Song after song, tune after tune, he
painfully evolved, only to throw them
aside with a cry of despair when in
ished.
Mechanical! wooden! Correct har-
mony? Yes, but oh, We gods, how COM
monplace, how evenly on the dead lev
ell! and only "a hours left before the
MS. must be posted. | am like a
drowning man who sees the life belt
hanging just only out of his reach. The
prize, the position, the melody, and my
utter inability to grasp 1t. What Is
that?" spring to his feet and almost
ceasing to breathe as certain notes.
hating, faulty. but still g~loriously
beautiful, reached his ear. who is
that? What is that?"- A long pause,
then he said deliberately, fesolutely.
though his face was white as now.
That is the music that shall win the
prize! 1t Is mine, not his! l dreamed
it. | can write it into something that
will electrify the world; my harmonies
shall be transcendentally beautiful. his
are hopelessly faulty; the melody is
worthless to him, to me 1t is salvation
for soul and body
The notes were played through again
slowly, tenderly, with wrong chords.
with right chords, with one finger on
ly, a rich deep voice hummed them. a
girls clear soprano corrected the man
to a curious minor resolution that Co
Inns soul had already 1eapt to-they
these unknown two-had given him
the elew to hts dream melody; theirs
was of the earth earthly; he would turn
1t into something that was worthy
even of heaven itself.
Down he sat and set feverishly TO
work, and the melody fitted the words
as a glove the hand:
Hail, victor in the generous strife,
This is the golden hour of life;
The struggle and the task are done.
The guerdon and the chaplet won.
Thine is the fadeless olive crown,
Blazon and badge of bright renown;
For thee the poets Tyre is strung,
For thee the song of triumph won.
He wrote on and on, and on. Night
passed into day, and day nearly into
night again before it was finished, and
he managed to stagger out and post it
himself; then he tainted, and Mrs. Will
cox told him he must leave her house
at the end of the week. She couldn't
abide invalids, besides which she had
a chance of letting her rooms for al
most double the money; her first floors
were going, and new people coming in
who wanted an extra room.
Colin was thankful 10 go. He felt
like a thief who has robbed a blind
man. He was a thief, and he had stol-
en- what was far more precious thar
gold-he had stolen fame from an old
man, a foreigner, from a girl perhaps
as poor as himself-and he hated him
self for it. He had lone it almost In
his delirium, but as health and
strength returned every hour, so did
his moral sense of right and wrong.
He was a thief.
The letter with the good news came
to a dreary London attic, one of those
tiny, i~ll-furnished rooms which shelter
broken hearts and hide blighted hopes
from the mock of the world.
Colin Stuart had won the prize for
his superb setting Of the classic ode
he held the check in his hand for
ESQ, with the formal offer Of the post
he had craved, with more than formal
appreciation of his work, for the ia
nous Signor Tiorno pronounced it wor-
thy OF the highest praise.
Colin threw the letter down in Bit
ter contempt. Stolen honors-a giants
robe" he muttered, only, thank heay-
en-, there Is still time to make restitu-
ton. ! will take 1t there onight-now,
it may be to them what 1t was to me-
what It would have been to me IL Il
were honestly mine. Perhaps the msl-
ody was hers-that beautiful dark eyed
e}rl used to zee passing up and down
to the second floor back-perhapa 4
was the old foreigners I saw With her
Just before ! wau taken iil-they viii
pity and forgive, the temptation was