Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1904-08-12
THE CRY OF
THE VIOLIN.
BY FRANK H. SWEET.

room or cellar, and perhaps took
boarders. Newly-arrived immi-
grants from Italy who could not
speak English, or who had little
money, often came here, and, if
economical or shiftless, very like,
ly remained. The more ambitious
and energetic soon went in search
of better quarters.
Pietro was the name given by
one of these new arrivals, and
though the clothing he wore was
evidently coarser that what he
was accustomed to, yet it was so
much better than his surround
ings that the other dodgers looked
at him askance. The morning
after he came the proprietor went
to him.
"What is your business?" he
asked, abruptly.
Pietro did not even look toward
him. They were standing by the
door, and the eager, restless eyes
were scanning the people in the
street.
Il paid you my lodging last
hight for a week." was the cold
answer.
"Yes, l know" with less az.
gressiveness in the voice, ''but l
help my countrymen to make IA
start. If you hand-organ man, !
have hand organs to rent; if you
grind knife or sell fruit or work-a
by day, ] have grindstone and
push cart, and j know where hire
you out. | help my cOuntrymen."
"Thank you, but ! do not need
your assistance"
The proprietor frOwned angrily,
his small black eyes studying his
ledger with open suspicion. Pie
trO's fingers were long and white,
and there were no unwashed ac-
cumulatiOns upon his neck and
face and behind his ears, as was
the case with the other lOdgers;
and then he talked pure Ameri
can, better than he himself, who
had been in the country ten years.
Scotia more money to pay?" he
demanded.
1--WE will see at the end of the
week." was the absent reply.
Pietro's thoughts were so evi-
IDENTIFY preOccupied with the street
that the proprietor turned away,
his face darkening.
well" he snarled back, "yOu
BETA be careful. The police court
be close by, and they watch sharp"
That evening a reporter was
walking along the sidewalk, his
eyes open for local color. Oppo-
site the lodging house he sudden
ly paused. The low, yearning cry
of a violin was floating out, falling
now almost into silence, as though
in despair, and then rising, rising,
entreatingly, imperiously, sweep
ing all before it, until ones very
soul demanded to be released to
90 in answer. 1t was not the work
Of an amateur or of an ordinary
good player, but of master, such
as may be heard at rare intervals
uptown, but never on Elizabeth
street. The reporter listened un
til the last note died away in 4
low sob, and then went into the
lodging house. But the player
was sitting at an open window in
an upper room and would not be
disturbed.
All through the night the sob
bling wall and the imperiOus en-
treaty fingered in the reporters
brain, at his desk in the Park Row
office, in his own lodging hOhuse,
and finally entering into his
dreams, and always as of some
thing half remembered. And the
next day, while gathering news
at the clubs, in the emigrant Office,
at the police stations, the notes
still flOated tantalizingly in his
thoughts. But it was not until he
went to the opera in the evening
that he remembered. 1t was a lit
tie Italian love song, and had been
played in that very theater two
winters before.
a few evenings later he was
again on Elizabeth street and
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