"Oh!"--and David's face cleared."That's all right,then.Your God isn't the same one,sir,for mine loves all beautiful things every day in the year."There was a moment's silence.For the first time in his life Simeon Holly found himself without words.
"We won't talk of this any more,David,"he said at last;"but we'll put it another way--I don't wish you to play your fiddle on Sunday.Now,put it up till to-morrow."And he turned and went down the hall.
Breakfast was a very quiet meal that morning.Meals were never things of hilarious joy at the Holly farmhouse,as David had already found out;but he had not seen one before quite so somber as this.It was followed immediately by a half-hour of Scripture-reading and prayer,with Mrs.Holly and Perry Larson sitting very stiff and solemn in their chairs,while Mr.Holly read.David tried to sit very stiff and solemn in his chair,also;but the roses at the window were nodding their heads and beckoning;and the birds in the bushes beyond were sending to him coaxing little chirps of "Come out,come out!"And how could one expect to sit stiff and solemn in the face of all that,particularly when one's fingers were tingling to take up the interrupted song of the morning and tell the whole world how beautiful it was to be wanted!
Yet David sat very still,--or as still as he could sit,--and only the tapping of his foot,and the roving of his wistful eyes told that his mind was not with Farmer Holly and the Children of Israel in their wanderings in the wilderness.
After the devotions came an hour of subdued haste and confusion while the family prepared for church.David had never been to church.He asked Perry Larson what it was like;but Perry only shrugged his shoulders and said,to nobody,apparently:--"Sugar!Won't ye hear that,now?"--which to David was certainly no answer at all.
That one must be spick and span to go to church,David soon found out--never before had he been so scrubbed and brushed and combed.
There was,too,brought out for him to wear a little clean white blouse and a red tie,over which Mrs.Holly cried a little as she had over the nightshirt that first evening.
The church was in the village only a quarter of a mile away;and in due time David,open-eyed and interested,was following Mr. and Mrs.Holly down its long center aisle.The Hollys were early as usual,and service had not begun.Even the organist had not taken his seat beneath the great pipes of blue and gold that towered to the ceiling.
It was the pride of the town--that organ.It had been given by a great man (out in the world)whose birthplace the town was.More than that,a yearly donation from this same great man paid for the skilled organist who came every Sunday from the city to play it.To-day,as the organist took his seat,he noticed a new face in the Holly pew,and he almost gave a friendly smile as he met the wondering gaze of the small boy there;then he lost himself,as usual,in the music before him.
Down in the Holly pew the small boy held his breath.A score of violins were singing in his ears;and a score of other instruments that he could not name,crashed over his head,and brought him to his feet in ecstasy.Before a detaining hand could stop him,he was out in the aisle,his eyes on the blue-and-gold pipes from which seemed to come those wondrous sounds.Then his gaze fell on the man and on the banks of keys;and with soft steps he crept along the aisle and up the stairs to the organ-loft.
For long minutes he stood motionless,listening;then the music died into silence and the minister rose for the invocation.It was a boy's voice,and not a man's,however,that broke the pause.
"Oh,sir,please,"it said,"would you--could you teach ME to do that?"The organist choked over a cough,and the soprano reached out and drew David to her side,whispering something in his ear.The minister,after a dazed silence,bowed his head;while down in the Holly pew an angry man and a sorely mortified woman vowed that,before David came to church again,he should have learned some things.
