Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
—Written as a funeral poem for Lincoln, and one of the great poems of the nineteenth century.
THE FACE OF THE MASTER
By Myrtle Reed
In a little town in Italy there lived an old violin-maker whose only pride and happiness was in the perfect instruments he made. He had a little son called Pedro. Pedro was a dark little fellow with large, brown eyes which seemed to hold a world of feeling and sometimes sadness. He loved his mother dearly, but shrank somewhat from his stern father, who was always so busy he hardly noticed him.
Pedro was errand boy for the little shop and tried to do his work patiently, cheerfully and obediently. One day an unusually fine instrument had been finished and the old man, in his joy and pride, held it in position and touched the strings softly with the bow. Pedro, who was sitting outside on the porch, heard the music and came running in to hear it, but in his haste he did not see an exquisite piece of carving on the floor and stepped upon it. Crack! it broke in two. Pedro’s father became very angry and pushed him into his little bedroom and turned the key in the lock.
In the morning Pedro’s father called him very early, as he had many errands for the boy to do. All day Pedro trudged wearily back and forth for his father. He went about his work as if in a dream, thinking always of the music he had heard and wishing with all his heart that he might play. Night was coming on and Pedro was sitting on the step outside resting, when his father told him he had yet another errand for him to do. Pedro was very tired, yet he did not say anything but went immediately on the errand. When he had delivered the message, the man showed him a short cut home. As Pedro was walking slowly home, he stopped suddenly as he heard the sound of music. Could it be a violin? He listened to find from whence it came. At last he decided it came from the little vine-covered cottage across the lane. He walked slowly over and sat down under the open window. The music was exquisite. As he listened he heard the soft wind rustling through the trees, the sound of birds calling to one another in the forest, the sound of rushing water as that of a river as it flowed headlong into the ocean.
The music changed as he listened; he heard a soft, dreamy lullaby, then again the sound of the ocean, of the waves beating upon the sand. As he listened the music grew fainter, the moon came out from behind the cloud and Pedro saw the face of the Master.