Down the road, two miles from the Burton home, was the wayside church with its small and unpretentious organ, and this afternoon Paul had been pumping its wheezy bellows while the young woman who contributed the Sabbath music practised. As he came out of the small building and took his way across the hills, Paul was exalted as he always was by music.
Once he had passed through the gates of dream, which swung wide to a key of sound, he wandered on, fancy led, until some actuality broke the spell, bringing him back with a shock and an inward sigh for the awakening.
But when he drew near the house, a footstep crackled in the underbrush, and Ham emerged from the woods. As the elder boy came up, Paul, roused out of his dreams, gave a start and then fell into step.
"Been out there listenin' to the leaves fallin' again?" inquired Ham shortly.
"I've been pumping the organ." Paul's reply was half-apologetic.
"You don't think about much except music, do you, Paul?"
"Isn't music all right?" For once the lad spoke almost aggressively in defense of his single enthusiasm.
"I wasn't exactly finding fault, Paul. Only, I don't see much hope for a feller in this country that doesn't think about anything else. You're in pretty much the same fix as an Esquimo that can't be happy without flowers. Grand opera doesn't come as often as the circus, and some years the circus doesn't come. Listen!" He put one hand into his trousers' pockets, and noisily rattled a handful of coins. "That music is understood everywhere. Even in this God-forsaken place, they know how to dance to its tune."
"Where did you get it?" For an instant Paul halted in his tracks and forgot his air-castles. Money was so rare a thing in their narrow little world that even to his impracticability it partook of magic.
Yesterday Ham's pockets had been as empty as his own and today there emanated from them the clash of silver—not the tinkle of light nickels and dimes, but the substantial clatter of halves and dollars.