The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-08-20
Copyright, 1911. bu the Bobbs-
 Merrill Go.

 O.-.-.-.-.-.....-.-.-e-. page that had been torn from Bible. The rough men who stood about him bowed their wild heads upon their breasts, and sobs broke from them.
 At last Williams stopped his reading, stretched his long arms above his head and cried chokingly:
 "The great God keep Mees Cum minsw
 As the earth fell there came from the edge of the forest the low, sweet music of Jan Thoreau's violin. No man in all the world could have told what he played, for it was the music of Jan's soul, wild and whispering of the winds, sweetened by some strange inheritance that had come to him with the pic ture> which he carried in his throbbing heart
 He played until only the tall spruce and John Cummins stood over the lone grave. When he stopped the man turned to him, and they went together to the little cabin where the woman had lived.
 There was something new in the cab in now--a tiny white, breathing thing over which an Indian wonas n watched. The boy stood beside John Cummins l looking down upon it and trembling.
 "Ah," he whispered, his great eyes glowing, 'it ees the leetle white an- gel. 's,'1.A '' = v
 Tt is the little Melisse,''' replied the man.
 He dropped upon his knees with his sad face close to the new life that was to take the place of the one that had 1 just gone out. Jan felt something tug l ging in a strange way at his heart, and he, too, fell upon his knees beside John 1 Cummins in this first worship of the child. ~
 From this hour of their first kneeling before the little life in the cabin some thing sprang up between Jan Thoreau 1 and John Cummins which it would have been hard for man to break. That night when Jan picked up his ] violin to go back to Mukee's cabin l Cummins put his two hands on the l boys shoulders and said:
 "Jan, who are you and where did you come from ?'
 Jan stretched his arm vaguely to the north.
 "Jan Thoreau," he replied simply. "Thees is my violon. We come alone i, through the beeg snow. We starve seven day in the. beeg. snow. My violon keep the wolf off at night"
 Hook again, Jan. Didn't you come 4 from there or there or there?" Cummins turned slowly, facing first l to the east and Hudson's bay, then to the south, and lastly to the west. There was something more than curiosity in 1 the tense face that came back in star l ing inquiry to Jan Thoreau. The boy hunched his shoulders, and his eyes flashed.
 t'It ees not lie that Jan Thoreau and hees violon come through the beeg snow," he replied softly. Ut ees not 1 liep'
 .There is plenty of room here ndw," ! said Cummins huskily "Will you stay with the little Melisse and meT'
 "With the leetle Melissew gasped the boy. "I-IAstay with the leetle white angel for ever and everr' 1 No man learned more of Jan than had Cummins. Even to Mukee his his- tory was equally simple and short. AL ways he said that he came from out of l the north, which meant the Barren lands, and the Barren lands meant death. No man had ever come across I oc 1or hoH ov16 at 4tnAYs time and under other circumstances Cummins and his people would have believed him mad.
 | But they knew that Jan Thoreau had come like messenger from the angels, that the woman's soul had gone out to | meet him, and that she had died sweet | ly on John Cummins' breast while he | played. So the boy. with his thin, sen sitive face and his great, beautiful eyes, became part of what the wo- l man had left behind for them to love
 In way he made up for her loss. The woman had brought something new and sweet into their barren lives, and he brought something new and l sweet-the music of his violin. He | played for them in the evening in the 1 factors office, and at these times they knew that Cummins' wife was very 1 near to, them and that she was speak ] Ing to them through the things which Jan Thoreau played
 There were hours qf triumph for Jan in the factors office. but it was the l audience in the little cabin that Jan liked best, and. most of all, he loved to have the little Melisse alone. As the days of early spring trapping ap- preached and the wilderness for hun dred miles around the post was criss-