"God," he muttered under his breath, "I believe the boy can
get into other folk's souls somehow, and play out what HIS
soul sees there."
"What's that you say?" inquired Felix, petting his fiddle.
"Nothing--never mind--go on. Something lively now,
young Felix. Stop probing into my soul, where you haven't no
business to be, you infant, and play me something out of your own--
something sweet and happy and pure."
"I'll play the way I feel on sunshiny mornings, when the birds are
singing and I forget I have to be a minister," said Felix simply.
A witching, gurgling, mirthful strain, like mingled bird and brook song,
floated out on the still air, along the path where the red
and golden maple leaves were falling very softly, one by one.
The Reverend Stephen Leonard heard it, as he came along the way,
and the Reverend Stephen Leonard smiled. Now, when Stephen Leonard
smiled, children ran to him, and grown people felt as if they looked
from Pisgah over to some fair land of promise beyond the fret
and worry of their care-dimmed earthly lives.
Mr. Leonard loved music, as he loved all things beautiful,
whether in the material or the spiritual world, though he did not
realize how much he loved them for their beauty alone, or he would
have been shocked and remorseful.
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