"You will come again?" asked they, in one breath.
He paused, and looked compassionately, almost tenderly, at the face of the blind girl. "Yes, yes," he said, hurriedly, "I will come again, and give the fraulein some lessons. Farewell! I will soon come again'"
They followed us in silence more eloquent than words, and stood at their door till we were out of sight and hearing.
"Let us make haste back," said Beethoven, "that I may write out that sonata while I can yet remember it!" We did so, and he sat over it till long past day-dawn. And this was the origin of that Moonlight Sonata with which we are all so fondly acquainted.
* * * * *
OVER THE HILL FROM THE POOR-HOUSE.
I, who was always counted, they say,
Rather a bad stick any way,
Splintered all over with dodges and tricks,
Known as "the worst of the Deacon's six;"
I, the truant, saucy and bold,
The one black sheep in my father's fold,
"Once on a time," as the stories say,
Went over the hill on a winter's day—
Over the hill to the poor-house.
Tom could save what twenty could earn;
But givin' was somethin' he ne'er would learn;
Isaac could half o' the Scriptur's speak—
Committed a hundred verses a week;
Never forgot, an' never slipped;
But "Honour thy father and mother" he skipped;
So over the hill to the poor-house!
As for Susan, her heart was kind
An' good—what there was of it, mind;
Nothin' too big, an' nothin' too nice,
Nothin' she wouldn't sacrifice
For one she loved; an' that 'ere one,
Was herself, when all was said an' done;
An' Charley, an' Becca meant well, no doubt,
But any one could pull 'em about;
An' all o' our folks ranked well, you see,
Save one poor fellow, and that was me;
An' when, one dark an' rainy night,
A neighbour's horse went out o' sight,
They hitched on me, as the guilty chap
That carried one end o' the halter-strap.
An' I think, myself, that view of the case
Wasn't altogether out o' place;
My mother denied it, as mothers do,
But I'm inclined to believe 'twas true.
Though for me one thing might be said—
That I, as well as the horse, was led;
And the worst of whiskey spurred me on,
Or else the deed would have never been done.
But the keenest grief I ever felt
Was when my mother beside me knelt,
An' cried and prayed, till I melted down,
As I wouldn't for half the horses in town.
I kissed her fondly, then an' there,
An' swore henceforth to be honest and square.