The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1903-11-20
A DREAM MELODY


you must be a kind Of pantomime fai-
ry disguised as-as"-
Don't you so poking your fun at
me" she broke in shrilly. Pm poor
hard working honest woman. Fairy.
indeed The very idea! What you've
had you've paid for, or, it stands to
reason that you'd have gone long ago."
paid for blankly; why, when I
was taken i'll was behind with my
rent
And who'll blame me for paying
myself out of the money in your pock-
ETY. hectoringly. There you was a.
lying dead $50 it looked at first) on
the floor, and when the doctor was
fetched, ne says food, fire, wine an
good nursing. Who's to pay? says [,
and he says, You'd better look among
his things for his money. In the mean
time, use this, giving me a sovereign.
One OF the other dodgers sat with you
while | run out for the medicine, an
afterward we went through your things
together.
Ten pounds there was in two five
pound notes, an Is shillings in silver
jist got the gentleman to sign his
name to its being all right, which,
thank heaven, he's here an can prove,
an in course / took out the three
pounds owing for rent, an paid the
doctor back his sovereign, an used
the rest as it was wanted. What's left
Is in that there box on the table, an
another weeks rent due tomorrow"
She was hard, but honest. There was
still a remnant of gold among the sill.
ver-enough to last, please heaven, un-
til he was strong enough to crawl
about again, with the hope of earning
a precarious living.
Where the money had come from
goodness alone knew! A purse of gold,
where not one copper piece had been!
AS Colin lay back on his lodging
house pillow (hard and rather grimy)
unshed tears burned his eyeballs as he
thought of that doctor, who, seeing at
a glance that he was dying from sheer
starvation, had not hesltated to give
the two pence" of the Good Samari-
tan.
The mere money may repay some
day." he thought; but the action,
never! Whether one pound or fifty at
the last day, it will speak-it will have
a 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
Conservatoire at Florence for the best
setting of a song to words supplied by
them-G250 English money, with the
/, situation of harmony master at laEc
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 veal
from illness, and it was evidently
doomed TO remain one of those UNTOLD
7 dream witcheries which thrall mos
soul musicians at times AID draw away
) their thoughts to cloudland He coulC
l not hum it, could not find its begin
ming or end, though he tried each notr
in the gamut; but he felt It, he haC
5 dreamed it, some day-too late, per
haps, to make use OF it in this world
it would come to him in its full, glori
D GUS beauty.
Song after song, tune after tune. h
c painfully evolved, only to throw then
! aside with cry of despair when fin
> ished.
g Mechanical! wooden! Correct har
t mony? Yes, but oh, ye gods, how com
Z monplace, how evenly on the dead lev
e ell! and only "a hours left before tn
. Ms. must be posted am like
q drowning man who sees the life be
q hanging Just only out Of his reach. TIL
prize, The position the melody, and N
s Z utter inability % Grasp It. What