Rural Retreat times. [volume] (Rural Retreat, Va.) 1892-1918, 1903-03-13
lie HERMIT OF THE
FLATS.

"Where do you live?" he demanded
abruptly.
SIN Greenwich street, Mister"
Down town, l presume. Must you
go home to-night?"
The boy shrugged his shoulders with
gently depreciating smile. Nobody
| don't care If / don't" he answered.
Then you had better stay here. You
can sleep on the couch, yonder, when
you're all cleaned up. You are wiring
ing wet and cold as ice. Tell you what,
I'll run a tubful of warm water, and
you can take your bath while hunt up
some dry things. After that you can
tell me about yourself"
When the strange little figure
emerged from the bathroom arrayed in
Haswells spacious pajamas, with his
black, silken thatch washed and curl
| ing crisply all around his pale face,
Haswell noticed that his delicate, re-
fined beauty was quite extraordinary
and altogether irreconcilable with his
| rags and misery. Haswell poured out
| the coffee he had STEPPED over his
alcohol lamp. and set before his guest
plate of crackers AMI cheese which
he babe him eat, while he finished his
! work, but although the host made
| creditable feint of writing, he did not
for an instant take his eyes from the
beautiful, pallid face which the mel
low freight threw into sharp relief.
Why did that stranger child interest
him so overwhelmingly? he asked him
| self grimly; was it because of the pos
sible story it held, or had he touched
| the glossed-over springs of human
sympathy which had lain dormant so
long under the stolid Indifference that
cloaked the hermit of the flats?
| 1t was pathetic little story that the
| lad had to tell, and he told it in falter-
ing English, with now and then a word
OF his Seryian mother tongue to offset
| its pathos: of his immigrant father, a
| musician i'll the old country, who had
| been obliged to taKe work in a factory
| to avert starvation, whose death oc-
CURED shortly after through an explo-
sion of the factory works; of the subse-
| quent wanderings i'll strange city.
| His only friends had Lately been EN-
| gagged to travel with concert band.
and lie was trying TO find country
man who had promised him an insig-
nificant part with his wandering band.
He was quite alone in the world, with
out kindred or friends or money. His
only hope was to obtain work enough
to pay his return passage to Servia.
Haswell asked many questions, but the
lad's story never deviated except to
add some pathetic detail which showed
how much toll and privation his young
life had known.
Il used to take great deal of pleas
ure in music" said Haswell, when the
child had finished his story and drawn
MS chair closer to the blazing hearth
suppose You play something for me
IL you are warm enough to handle YOUR
violin. l want to know what you can
| do"
Rhuel tucked his old violin under his
chin and frightened the slack strings,
| then he dried his bow carefully and
began to play. very softly and deli
cately a weird little melody unlike
anything Haswell had ever heard, more
sad. more beautiful and infinitely
sweeter. There was lack of tech
nique and defniteness in his touch
which would bar a successful hearing
with the coldly critical public, but to
| Haswell, whose soul was stirred to it's
inmost depths by the spirit of pure
melody, it seemed inexpressibly lovely.
1T brought new pictures to his mind.
of unsupported beauty, of lives shad-
owed by want and poverty, toilers in
the dark whom such as he, to whom
much had been given, should minister
comfort and cheer. He seated himself
before his desk and began to write,
without conscious effort or WEAKNESS,
the story that the child's music in
splred. The boy played on unc> asing-
~, glancing now and then at the hand
hurrying across the paper until at
last Haswell lifted his head and smiled.
You are tired, I'm sure" he said in
a voice of singular gentleness. Put
away your violin and go to bed in my
room, yonder; want to flush my
work here beside the fire"
.