Philip: The Story of a Boy Violinist

by Virginia C. Young; Mary C. Hungerford

And then Aunt Delia saw it all in a flash—the boy’s shy reserve with his cousins, his embarrassment which at times had puzzled and distressed her.

“My dear boy!” she cried; “and it has troubled you so much that you are a year or two behind the other children! My poor foolish Philip!”

“It has made me wish many a time that I had never been born, or that my mother had taken me with her when she died,” murmured Philip, his hand still on his aunt’s shoulder.

“But, my dear, it is so easily remedied, this terrible ignorance which has made you so unhappy. Your uncle and I have only been waiting until you should be quite well and strong. But we will not wait another day. You shall have a governess as soon as we can find one who will be willing to undertake the education of such a silly, stupid boy,” and she pinched his flushed cheek with playful affection.

But Philip was not entirely reassured.

“A governess!” he said doubtfully. “Oh, but that will be another person to find out how ignorant I am!”

“But how else in the world will you ever learn?” asked Aunt Delia, smiling; “and besides I thought you wanted to study music, and the governess can give you lessons on the piano as well, you know.”

The expression of doubt on Philip’s face cleared instantly and he smiled radiantly. “Oh, Aunt Delia,” he cried, “it seems almost too good to be true! Do you suppose I shall ever be able to play like—like Marion?” And Aunt Delia smiled, but wisely said nothing. Only that same evening she nodded sagely when her husband remarked: “My dear, that boy has certainly a most remarkable talent for music.”

And so, indeed, he had, as well as what might be called an extraordinary musical memory. He remembered every tune he had heard his cousin play, and there was not one, even among the most difficult, that he did not pick out upon the old piano. Hesitatingly at first, with his head bent in the bird-like way that Lillie had noticed, his fingers would wander over the keys, touching the notes of the remembered air, then striking them with more assurance, and finally weaving around the familiar tune strangely sweet strains and chords. Listening to him sometimes, in the long twilight, Aunt Delia would find herself wiping the dimness from her glasses, and wondering at the strange power his untaught playing had to move her as no other music ever did.

Philip dearly loved to have her for a listener, for he knew his playing gave her pleasure, and his deep gratitude for her goodness to him made him rejoice that there was even one thing he could do to gratify her. They grew very confidential in the quiet hours they spent together, and Aunt Delia explored her memory for half-forgotten stories of her own youth, and once she was led on by the boy’s rapt interest in all she said to speak of the dear little children the Lord had blessed her with for a short time in her early married life, and then taken to Himself. Philip wept with her when she told of her sorrow and loneliness, and when she kissed him and called him the blessing of her old age, his heart swelled with proud pleasure at the thought of being any comfort to one so dear.