Christie's old organ

by Mrs. O. F. Walton

He had felt it very much on the day of which I am writing. It was cold, dismal weather; a cutting east wind had swept round the corners of the streets, and had chilled the old man through and through. His threadbare coat could not keep it out; how could he expect it to do so, when he had worn it so many years he could scarcely count them? His thin, trembling old hands were so benumbed with cold that he could scarcely feel the handle of the organ, and, as he turned it, he made sundry little shakes and quavers in the tune, which were certainly not intended by the maker of the old barrel-organ.

There was not much variety in the tunes old Treffy could play. There was the "Old Hundredth," and "Poor Mary Ann," and "Rule Britannia;" the only other one was "Home, sweet Home," but that was old Treffy's favorite. He always played it very slowly, to make it last longer, and on this cold day the shakes and the quavers in it sounded most pathetic.

But no one took much notice of old Treffy or his organ. A little crowd of children gathered round him, and asked him for all sorts of new tunes of which he had never even heard the names.

They did not seem to care for "Home, sweet Home," or the "Old Hundredth," and soon moved away. Then an old gentleman put his head out of a window, and in a cross voice told him to go on and not disturb a quiet neighborhood with his noise. Old Treffy meekly obeyed, and, battling with the rough east wind, he tried another and a more bustling street; but here a policeman warned him to depart, lest he should crowd up the way.

Poor old Treffy was almost fainting, but he must not give up, for he had not a half-penny in his pocket, and he had come out without breakfast. At length a kind-hearted farmer's wife, who was passing with a basket on her arm, took pity on the trembling old man, and gave him a penny from her capacious pocket.

Thus all day long Treffy played on; over and over again his four tunes were sounded forth, but that was the only penny he received that cold day.

At last, as the daylight was fading, he turned homeward. On his way he parted with his solitary penny for a cake of bread, and slowly and wearily he dragged himself up the steep stairs to his lonely attic.

Poor old Treffy was in bad spirits this evening. He felt that he and his organ were getting out of date—things of the past. They were growing old together. He could remember the day when it was new. How proud he had been of it! Oh, how he had admired it! The red silk was quite bright, and the tunes were all in fashion. There were not so many organs about then, and people stopped to listen,—not children only, but grown men and women,—and Treffy had been a proud man in those days. But a generation had grown up since then, and now Treffy felt that he was a poor, lone old man, very far behind the age, and that his organ was getting too old-fashioned for the present day. Thus he felt very cast down and dismal, as he raked together the cinders, and tried to make a little blaze in the small fire he had lighted.

But when he had eaten his cake, and had taken some tea which he had warmed over again, old Treffy felt rather better, and he turned as usual to his old organ to cheer his fainting spirits. For old Treffy knew nothing of a better Comforter.

The landlady of the house had objected at first to old Treffy's organ; she said it disturbed the lodgers; but on Treffy's offering to pay a penny a week extra for his little attic, on condition of his being able to play whenever he liked, she made no further opposition.