To his surprise,the man found himself relinquishing the violin and bow into the slim,eager hands that reached for them.The next moment he fell back in amazement.Clear,distinct,yet connected like a string of rounded pearls fell the troublesome notes from David's bow."You see,"smiled the boy again,and played the phrase a second time,more slowly,and with deliberate emphasis at the difficult part.Then,as if in answer to some irresistible summons within him,he dashed into the next phrase and,with marvelous technique,played quite through the rippling cadenza that completed the movement.
"Well,by George!"breathed the man dazedly,as he took the offered violin.The next moment he had demanded vehemently:"For Heaven's sake,who ARE you,boy?"David's face wrinkled in grieved surprise.
"Why,I'm David.Don't you remember?I was here just the other day!""Yes,yes;but who taught you to play like that?""Father."
"'Father'!"The man echoed the word with a gesture of comic despair."First Latin,then jiujitsu,and now the violin!Boy,who was your father?"David lifted his head and frowned a little.He had been questioned so often,and so unsympathetically,about his father that he was beginning to resent it.
"He was daddy--just daddy;and I loved him dearly.""But what was his name?"
"I don't know.We didn't seem to have a name like--like yours down here.Anyway,if we did,I didn't know what it was.""But,David,"--the man was speaking very gently now.He had motioned the boy to a low seat by his side.The little girl was standing near,her eyes alight with wondering interest."He must have had a name,you know,just the same.Didn't you ever hear any one call him anything?Think,now.""No."David said the single word,and turned his eyes away.It had occurred to him,since he had come to live in the valley,that perhaps his father did not want to have his name known.He remembered that once the milk-and-eggs boy had asked what to call him;and his father had laughed and answered:"I don't see but you'll have to call me 'The Old Man of the Mountain,'as they do down in the village."That was the only time David could recollect hearing his father say anything about his name.At the time David had not thought much about it.But since then,down here where they appeared to think a name was so important,he had wondered if possibly his father had not preferred to keep his to himself.If such were the case,he was glad now that he did not know this name,so that he might not have to tell all these inquisitive people who asked so many questions about it.He was glad,too,that those men had not been able to read his father's name at the end of his other note that first morning--if his father really did not wish his name to be known.
"But,David,think.Where you lived,wasn't there ever anybody who called him by name?"David shook his head.
"I told you.We were all alone,father and I,in the little house far up on the mountain.""And--your mother?"Again David shook his head.
