Philip: The Story of a Boy Violinist

by Virginia C. Young; Mary C. Hungerford

But Aunt Delia saw that his strength was gone, and was firm in insisting upon helping him back to his room, where he lay upon the lounge entirely overcome by his effort and excess of emotion.

From that time he began to mend rapidly, and instead of the dreary musings that had absorbed him, memory fed his poetic fancy with rapt recollections of the wonderful harmony and the beautiful young girl, like an angel she seemed to him, who from the strange unmusical-looking instrument drew such wonderfully melodious sounds. He begged so hard for more music that every day while they stopped with their uncle the sisters played, and if it was only the practice of their scales and other exercises to which he listened, his delight was unbounded.

He no longer resisted Aunt Delia’s desire to make him acquainted with his cousins, and so they were brought into his room by their mother. Marion, to gratify her curiosity, came eagerly when first permitted, and being, in spite of her mother’s wise training, excessively fond of admiration, vastly enjoyed the dazzled adoration of poor Philip for her beauty and accomplishments. But after the novelty of that wore off she began to show some of the unlovely traits of her nature, and to assume a cold and forbidding manner toward her cousin, who, she had decided on first learning of his existence, was a disgrace to the family.

Rose, who systematically copied her elder sister as nearly as possible, followed her lead in her treatment of Philip, and became, after the first, cold and haughty to him in the same proportion.

So it was left to Lillie to show him how loving and lovable a cousin may be. To atone for her sisters’ slights, which his utter ignorance of the world kept him from fully comprehending, she devoted every spare moment to his amusement. She talked to him for hours of her home and of the life she and her sisters led there—of their books, their studies, their amusements, and every detail. It was like a fairy tale to the boy—so much of whose short life had been spent under-ground. His lips were sealed about that dark past, which some instinct of his sensitive nature forbade his mentioning in the new sphere in which he found himself.

Perhaps it would have been better if, instead of burying thoughts, feelings, and experiences in his heart, he had frankly thrown himself upon the sympathy of his cousin Lillie, who, without receiving any confidence from him, felt the tenderest pity for the lonely orphan, and tried in every way in her power to make him forget the shadows that had overcast his young life.

One day her mother and sisters had gone to drive, leaving Lillie, by her own request, to sit with Philip. She came smilingly into his room after watching the carriage drive off, but Philip was not there.

Not much surprised, as lately he had walked about the house when he felt disposed, she sat down to wait for his return. Presently she heard the piano in the drawing-room touched gently and uncertainly, as if by an unaccustomed hand, then more confidently and firmly, and at last with energy—not at random, but harmoniously. She went to the door, and from there, unseen by him, she saw Philip seated at the instrument, his head turned bird-like upon one side, and his fingers actually bringing music from the keys. As she listened in surprise—for she knew he was playing for the first time in his life—she heard him say to himself, in a half whisper:

“Oh, it sings for me! it sings for me!”

He did not, as far as she could tell, attempt any tune, but the notes that he struck were in harmony, and in a sort of cadence, very different from what the usual performance of a child without instruction would naturally be.