Old Abel smiled drearily at him--
the smile of a man who has been in the hands of the tormentors.
"It's awful the way you play--it's awful," he said with a shudder.
"I never heard anything like it--and you that never had any teaching
since you were nine years old, and not much practice, except what
you could get here now and then on my old, battered fiddle.
And to think you make it up yourself as you go along!
I suppose your grandfather would never hear to your studying music--
would he now?"
Felix shook his head.
"I know he wouldn't, Abel. He wants me to be a minister.
Ministers are good things to be, but I'm afraid I can't
be a minister."
"Not a pulpit minister. There's different kinds of ministers,
and each must talk to men in his own tongue if he's going to do 'em
any real good," said old Abel meditatively. "YOUR tongue is music.
Strange that your grandfather can't see that for himself, and him such
a broad-minded man! He's the only minister I ever had much use for.
He's God's own if ever a man was. And he loves you--yes, sir, he loves
you like the apple of his eye."
"And I love him," said Felix warmly. "I love him so much that I'll
even try to be a minister for his sake, though I don't want to be.
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