第24章 JOE(2)

"Here?Oh,no,they aren't here.My mother is an angel-mother,and my father has gone to the far country.He is waiting for me there,you know.""But,that's the same--that is--"She stopped helplessly,bewildered eyes on David's serene face.Then suddenly a great light came to her own."Oh,little boy,I wish I could understand that--just that,"she breathed."It would make it so much easier--if I could just remember that they aren't here--that they're WAITING--over there!"But David apparently did not hear.He had turned and was playing softly as he walked away.Silently the Lady in Black knelt,listening,looking after him.When she rose some time later and left the cemetery,the light on her face was still there,deeper,more glorified.

Toward boys and girls--especially boys--of his own age,David frequently turned wistful eyes.David wanted a friend,a friend who would know and understand;a friend who would see things as he saw them,who would understand what he was saying when he played.It seemed to David that in some boy of his own age he ought to find such a friend.He had seen many boys--but he had not yet found the friend.David had begun to think,indeed,that of all these strange beings in this new life of his,boys were the strangest.

They stared and nudged each other unpleasantly when they came upon him playing.They jeered when he tried to tell them what he had been playing.They had never heard of the great Orchestra of Life,and they fell into most disconcerting fits of laughter,or else backed away as if afraid,when he told them that they themselves were instruments in it,and that if they did not keep themselves in tune,there was sure to be a discord somewhere.

Then there were their games and frolics.Such as were played with balls,bats,and bags of beans,David thought he would like very much.But the boys only scoffed when he asked them to teach him how to play.They laughed when a dog chased a cat,and they thought it very,very funny when Tony,the old black man,tripped on the string they drew across his path.They liked to throw stones and shoot guns,and the more creeping,crawling,or flying creatures that they could send to the far country,the happier they were,apparently.Nor did they like it at all when he asked them if they were sure all these creeping,crawling,flying creatures wanted to leave this beautiful world and to be made dead.They sneered and called him a sissy.David did not know what a sissy was;but from the way they said it,he judged it must be even worse to be a sissy than to be a thief.

And then he discovered Joe.

David had found himself in a very strange,very unlovely neighborhood that afternoon.The street was full of papers and tin cans,the houses were unspeakably forlorn with sagging blinds and lack of paint.Untidy women and blear-eyed men leaned over the dilapidated fences,or lolled on mud-tracked doorsteps.

David,his shrinking eyes turning from one side to the other,passed slowly through the street,his violin under his arm.

Nowhere could David find here the tiniest spot of beauty to "play."He had reached quite the most forlorn little shanty on the street when the promise in his father's letter occurred to him.With a suddenly illumined face,he raised his violin to position and plunged into a veritable whirl of trills and runs and tripping melodies.

"If I didn't just entirely forget that I didn't NEED to SEEanything beautiful to play,"laughed David softly to himself.

"Why,it's already right here in my violin!"

David had passed the tumble-down shanty,and was hesitating where two streets crossed,when he felt a light touch on his arm.He turned to confront a small girl in a patched and faded calico dress,obviously outgrown.Her eyes were wide and frightened.In the middle of her outstretched dirty little palm was a copper cent.

"If you please,Joe sent this--to you,"she faltered.

"To me?What for?"David stopped playing and lowered his violin.

The little girl backed away perceptibly,though she still held out the coin.

"He wanted you to stay and play some more.He said to tell you he'd 'a'sent more money if he could.But he didn't have it.He just had this cent."David's eyes flew wide open.

"You mean he WANTS me to play?He likes it?"he asked joyfully.

"Yes.He said he knew 't wa'n't much--the cent.But he thought maybe you'd play a LITTLE for it.""Play?Of course I'll play"cried David."Oh,no,I don't want the money,"he added,waving the again-proffered coin aside."Idon't need money where I'm living now.Where is he--the one that wanted me to play?"he finished eagerly.