Read Ebook: Philip: The Story of a Boy Violinist by Hungerford Mary C Mary Churchill Young Virginia C

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Ebook has 691 lines and 45261 words, and 14 pages

Philip

The Story of a Boy Violinist

Philip's Home

His days were nearly all spent in a place where there were great heights and depths, long corridors and galleries, with many people passing to and fro, many chambers above and below, and elevators running up and down. A great hotel, do you say? No, nothing so grand or pleasant as that, but a deep, dark, dismal mine; and there, from dawn till after nightfall, Philip and his mother spent the long, sun-bright days in a sort of living death. It was really like that, for what is life worth in a place where the sun never comes, where there is no grass nor flowers nor trees, where the beautiful blue sky with its snow-white flying cloudlets or great, gray, snow-capped cloud-mountains cannot be seen, and where there is nothing but the darkness of night all the day long!

But Philip was quite accustomed to this strange underground life, and as he knew nothing of anything different or better he was as happy as the day was long. After all, our lives are very much what we make them, and Philip was blessed with a very sweet and cheerful nature, which could make its own sunshine even at the bottom of a deep, dark mine; he had beside a very strong and healthy fancy, and he had peopled the dark recesses of the mine with all kinds of imaginary beings, who were real companions for the lonely child. Instead, however, of creating, as some foolish children would have done, only gnomes and goblins to inhabit the deep caverns and underground chambers, Philip chose rather to pretend that the soft sound of dropping water, which could always be heard if one listened, was the musical language of the coal-fairies who guarded the secrets of the mine, a language which only those who were very pure and good could understand.

There was another sprite who lived in the mine, with whom Philip used to hold long conversations, and who could always reply to him, although the answer was sometimes unsatisfactory; this was the echo of his own voice, and one day the little boy lost his way and caused his mother great alarm by following this mocking voice deep into the intricate windings of an unworked shaft. He found his way out again on this particular occasion by the aid of some other spirit-friends of his, the little lamps or candles which the miners carry in their hats. At a distance these lights, glancing here and there as the men moved about their work, looked exactly like large fireflies, and it was by following these and answering the friendly voices of the miners who shouted directions to him that Philip found his way back to his mother's side again.

And so you see that Philip led what I suppose most boys and girls would have called a very hard and lonely life, for he had few companions of his own age, and spent most of the time which other children have for play in sober work, yet he was quite happy and contented; and indeed he was much more fortunate than many of the people about him, who did not, like him, come up when the day was over, but who spent days and sometimes weeks or months down in the darkness of the mine, with never a glimpse of the blessed light of day, except what little could be seen from the long well-like shaft, up and down which went the buckets or elevators by which the miners were carried to and from their work. But when Philip's day in the mine was over he had only to step aboard the rough elevator which carried the miners up and down, and looking upward, as he always did on this journey back to the outer world, he could see the tall derrick which pointed skyward from the mouth of the shaft like a black finger grow gradually more distinct against the blue sky, and then in a moment more he would come out into the daylight once again.

The bright sunshine always hurt his eyes at first, but how pleasant and warm it seemed after the damp twilight down below! And how glorious it was to be able to run straight ahead for miles without being obliged to stoop beneath low, dripping walls, or to squeeze through narrow openings into close, rocky chambers where the stagnant air made one cough and choke! It was almost worth while, Philip thought, to spend eight hours of the day away from this beautiful world of nature in order to come back to it again each afternoon.

"Do ye think, mother dear," he said thoughtfully, one beautiful summer evening as they were walking home together through a field gay and fragrant with innumerable wild flowers--"do ye think that heaven can be a nicer place than this?"

His mother smiled at her boy's earnest question, and laid her hard, rough hand on his curly head in a loving way she had. "I reckon it is, my little lad," she said, "though we can't quite think of it; but they says the flowers there never wither nor die, and the sky is always blue, not lowering and black as our sky is sometimes--ye mind how it looked before the thunder-storm last night. The pleasures in that land will leave no ugly sting behind them, folks tells us, as they does here 'most always."

She spoke with a sad wistfulness in her voice which Philip was quick to notice, and he slipped his little hand into hers and looked up into her face with troubled eyes.

"Tell me, mother dear," he said gently, "why you are always so sad when we cross this field, especially in daisy time. Is it because my father used to walk here with you in the time ye said ye was used be happy?"

How marvellously wise love makes us all! Philip's mother looked down at him wonderingly.

"However did the lad guess?" she said as though to herself; "for it was in this very field we used to wander in those happy, foolish days. Oh, it would have been far better had we never"--she did not finish the sentence, but broke off quite suddenly, telling Philip to run on ahead; and the boy did as he was bidden, but half reluctantly, for although he seldom spoke of his father, feeling instinctively that the subject was a painful one to his mother, yet he thought about him very often, pondering as children will upon a theme not understood or only half explained. He knew that his father was dead--so much his mother had told him; and many a time he had heard her say that if it were not for her boy she could find it in her heart to wish herself dead too. He also knew that a locket which his mother always wore on a chain about her neck contained a portrait which she had once shown to him, and which she had told him was a perfect likeness of his father. Philip looked wonderingly at the face of the handsome young gentleman, who had clustering curls like his own, but whose clothes were of a cut and texture quite unlike those worn by the men whom Philip saw every day; and then as his glance had fallen upon his mother in her rough dress, he said with a kind of awe, "What fine clothes my father wore, didn't he, mother dear?"

And his mother had snatched the miniature almost fiercely from his hand, saying proudly:

A gentleman! Philip thought of it often afterward, wondering what his mother could have meant, for the only gentlemen the boy had ever seen lived in fine houses, and their wives rode in carriages and wore silk dresses and fine bonnets, while their home was a humble miner's cottage, and his mother--and then Philip, half ashamed of the thought, had run and put his arms about his mother's neck and smoothed the coarse cotton cloth of her dress with his loving hands, telling himself that although she did not wear the fine clothes of a lady, yet she was as sweet and beautiful and good as any lady in the land.

It never occurred to Philip to wonder that Mag could neither read nor write, for the people who lived all about them, and who spent the greater part of their lives in the mine, were of course very ignorant, there being no such things in those days as compulsory education or laws forbidding child-labor in the mines. Philip, therefore, at ten years of age did not know a single letter of the alphabet, and had seen only one or two books in his life. But although his mother was no wiser than her child so far as books went, she seemed somehow to have gained a strange knowledge of life; indeed, no one could look at her without feeling sure that she had loved and felt and suffered much. She was a large, grand-looking young woman, with a face and figure like a Greek statue, and she was almost as silent. Philip had never heard her laugh, and she seldom talked with the miners or joined in their rough merriment and sometimes rather coarse jokes. In reply to their greetings or questions she always gave short, civil enough answers, never voluntarily prolonging the conversation. But her silence was never sullen, and they all seemed to understand her; indeed, there was not one of them who would not gladly have done her a good turn, and she always acknowledged their favors gratefully.

It was often remarked that she seemed to take a sort of fierce pleasure in doing the hardest and roughest kinds of work, labor which usually was given only to the men; but she was still young and very strong, and it may have been that she dreaded the time for thought which idleness might have brought. At any rate, she chose the work and labored faithfully and patiently for the wages which supported her father and child.

Philip was constantly with his mother, and as he was a trifle shy and made few friends among the rough boys and girls of the neighborhood, he seemed to have concentrated all the affection of his warm little heart upon Mag, who loved him in return with a passionate devotion.

Philip and Mag and her old father were happy together in their humble home, which, although it was precisely the same as all the other huts which were huddled together around the opening of the mine, had about it an unusual air of comfort and refinement. There were white curtains at the small windows, a honeysuckle climbed over the porch, and at one side was a small garden, where it was Philip's delight to work with his grandfather; it was always gay with flowers, which seemed to thrive in spite of the poor soil, and there were vegetables and berries too, which often found their way to the tables of less fortunate neighbors. Within the cottage were a few small comforts not usually to be found in the miners' dwellings, a square or two of carpet, faded and worn, but warm and comfortable under the feet on cold nights, a red table-cover to replace the white one used for meals , and a lamp with a colored silk shade. There was besides an easy-chair or two, and in one corner a plain oak writing-desk which was regarded by the neighbors with some awe; it was carefully locked, and Philip had often wondered where the key which fitted it might be, but somehow he had always hesitated to ask, feeling, perhaps almost instinctively, that the explanation might cause his mother pain or embarrassment.

Dash

Next to Mag and his grandfather Philip loved his dog Dash better than anything else in the world. He was a ragged little terrier with a head much too large for his body, a short stump of a tail, and an awkward way of getting under people's feet and of tumbling all over himself when he ran; but he was a marvel of faithfulness and affection, and could do a multitude of the clever tricks which Philip delighted to teach him.

He had come to the door of the cottage one wild, stormy night, and had wailed so piteously outside that Mag said at last:

"Go, Philip, lad, unbolt the door; it is likely some poor dog perishing in the storm. We are not so poor but we can give the poor thing food and shelter for the night."

So Philip ran and opened the door, and the little dog ran in and cowered shivering before the fire; he was very wet and dirty, and so thin that the bones in his poor little body stood out in a way that was quite pitiful to see; he had a jagged end of rope about his neck, as though he had broken away from some place of confinement; his feet were cut and bleeding, as though he had travelled a long distance; and he had a general air of being quite done up and exhausted.

Philip brought him some food and water, and you should have seen the look of gratitude in the creature's eyes as he wagged his poor little stump of a tail, stopping now and then, hungry as he was, to lick the kind hand that fed him. Philip made a comfortable bed for him beside the fire, but next morning when he awoke and sat up in his own little bed, which stood beside his mother's, there was his small new friend sitting gravely beside him, quietly waiting for him to awake. Later, when Mag missed her little boy from her side, she discovered him, still in his night-clothes, rolling about on the floor, in play with the dog.

"Oh, mother!" he cried when she called to him, "please may I keep him for my very own? Only see how we love each other already!"

And Mag, her great love for her boy shining in her dark eyes, laid her hand kindly on the little dog's shaggy head.

"Sure, ye may keep the creature, Philip," she said, "provided his proper owner does na' call for him."

But no one ever came to claim him, and from that day Philip and Dash were inseparable, except during the hours when Philip was down in the mine with his mother; there the dog was not allowed to follow his young master, but he would go with him every morning to the entrance of the shaft, and stand looking down, after the car which carried the miners to their work had started on its downward journey. When it was quite out of sight he would turn with a whimper and trot home again with a business-like air, seldom stopping to play with other dogs by the way, and staying very quietly and obediently with the old grandfather for the rest of the day. But at the exact hour when it was to be expected that the car would come up again from the mine, bringing the men, with Philip and his mother, there would be Dash waiting for them, and ready to escort them home each night with as much joy as though he had not seen them for a month. No one ever knew how the little fellow could always be sure of the exact time when Philip might be expected, but he was never known to be late, except on one occasion when his grandfather had gone to a neighbor's, leaving Dash locked in the cottage. He must have managed to climb out of the window, which was several feet above the ground, for he came galloping down the road just as the miners were saying:

"Ah, Philip, lad, thy friend is failing thee the night."

Dash came by his name in quite an extraordinary way.

"Ye may depend upon it, such a clever dog has a handle to him already," said Philip's grandfather when the boy suggested that his pet should have a name.

"But however could we guess the right one?" said Philip doubtfully. Nevertheless he began to mention over in the little animal's hearing several names common to dogs, such as Rover, Gyp, Sport, and the like, while his dumb playmate stood before him, wagging his short tail as much as to say:

"I wish I could help you, master, but you haven't struck it yet, my boy."

Mag was sitting as usual by the table with the lamp, sewing quietly, but though she said little she would glance up now and then from her work and look lovingly at the little group before the fire. Suddenly she spoke: "I have thought of a name for the dog," she said. "Perhaps he may be called--Dash." She spoke the name emphatically, with a slight pause before it, and instantly the dog flew to her side as though she had called him, and stood wagging his tail and looking from Mag to Philip, saying as plainly as a dog could:

"That's my name--did you call me?"

"Oh, mother!" said Philip, clapping his hands with delight and surprise, "that is his name, I am sure of it--only see how knowing he looks! Here, Dash! Dash!"

"Here, Dash! Dash!" echoed Mag, almost smiling with the pleasure and excitement which she shared with her little son; and the dog ran wildly from one to the other, barking and frisking about for joy, as though delighted to be no longer a stray and nameless cur, but a dog with a name, and therefore with some claim to respectability.

"However did you guess it, mother?" asked Philip afterward.

"I don't know exactly, myself," said Mag, "unless it is," she added slyly, "that your friends the coal fairies whispered the name in my ear." And Philip blushed, for he was secretly a little ashamed of what he felt to be rather foolish sport for a boy who was earning his four shillings a week in the mine.

"I think I could help ye there, Philip," she would say. "I remember your father told me summat about that picture; it was one he was always over-fond of, an' sometimes he would try to tell me about what was in the books. I wish I could remember better for your sake, my lad."

It was really pathetic to see with what attention she had tried to follow the narrative or explanation, and it was quite wonderful how much of the recital she could recall, in almost the exact words in which she had heard it.

"How clever my father must have been!" said Philip thoughtfully, and Mag would reply proudly.

"Of course he was, lad; he could read out of the book just as smooth as talking."

And then she would usually lapse into silence again, and perhaps say no more that evening. And Philip loved his father's books, and longed to be able to master their contents.

One of the overseers at the mine, who was regarded as quite a scholar by the ignorant miners, had noticed Philip's interest in the newspaper which he sometimes brought down into the mine to be glanced over at odd moments when the men were all at work around him and he had little to do but keep a general eye on the others. One day in a burst of kindly feeling he pointed out some of the letters in the head-lines of the paper to Philip, and explained how, when put together, they made words and sentences. Finding the boy an apt pupil and very eager to learn, he became quite interested in teaching him to read, in much the same way as he might have found amusement in training an intelligent dog to fetch and carry, or to stand up and beg. To Philip this opened a whole world of wonder and delight. To be sure he did not learn at once, and sometimes weeks would pass when his friend would find no time to teach him; but the boy waited patiently, and meanwhile he had his own way of enjoying the gradual acquaintance which he was making with the great Alphabet Family, from A, the dignified and rather stern father, and B, the fat, good-natured mother of the flock, down to the youngest letter of the family, funny little crooked Baby Z.

Every evening during the time of those first lessons in the rudiments of learning, Philip could scarcely wait to get home, so anxious was he to tell Dash of the new letters which he had learned from the overseer's paper.

"Isn't it funny, Dash?" he would say. "Here is M--him I have known quite well for over a week, and always thought he was a very well-behaved and polite young letter, and here to-day, right in the middle of a page, I find him standing on his head; and--did ye ever see the like?--he's changed his name and calls himself W. And then here is O--I always knew him the minute I saw him. He seems almost to jump out at me from the page, he's that round and fat and easy to remember; and now only see here, Dash, they have gone and put a little handle on him, something like your tail, you see, and now he is called Q."

So Dash and Philip studied the alphabet together, and the little boy, from weaving fancies about the letters and the pictures in his father's books, came to have long waking dreams, which were so beautiful that he longed to tell his mother about them; but somehow when he tried to put them into words, Mag did not seem to understand, but would only shake her head and say kindly:

"Thy head grows dull, Philip, from sitting so much in the house. Go now an' have a run with Dash in the fresh air."

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