A Cathedral Singer | Page 5

foot of this slope was thick and green;
imagination missed from the picture rural sheep, their fleeces wet with
April rain. Along the summit of the slope trees of oak and ash and
maple and chestnut and poplar lifted against the sky their united forest
strength. Between the trees above and the grass below, the embankment
spread before the eye the enchantment of a spring landscape, with late
bare boughs and early green boughs and other boughs in blossom.
The earliest blossoms on our part of the earth's surface are nearly
always white. They have forced their way to the sun along a frozen
path and look akin to the perils of their road: the snow-threatened lily
of the valley, the chill snowdrop, the frosty snowball, the bleak hawtree,
the wintry wild cherry, the wintry dogwood. As the eye swept the park

expanse this morning, here and there some of these were as the last
tokens of winter's mantle instead of the first tokens of summer's.
There were flushes of color also, as where in deep soil, on a projection
of rock, a pink hawthorn stood studded to the tips of its branches with
leaf and flower. But such flushes of color were as false notes of the
earth, as harmonies of summer thrust into the wrong places and become
discords. The time for them was not yet. The hour called for hardy
adventurous things, awakened out of their cold sleep on the rocks. The
blue of the firmament was not dark summer blue but seemed the sky's
first pale response to the sun. The sun was not rich summer gold but
flashed silver rays. The ground scattered no odors; all was the budding
youth of Nature on the rocks.
Paths wind hither and thither over this park hillside. Benches are placed
at different levels along the way. If you are going up, you may rest; if
you are coming down, you may linger; if neither going up nor coming
down, you may with a book seek out some retreat of shade and
coolness and keep at a distance the millions that rush and crush around
the park as waters roar against some lone mid-ocean island.
About eleven o'clock that morning, on one of these benches placed
where rock is steepest and forest trees stand close together and vines
are rank with shade, a sociable-looking little fellow of some ten hardy
well-buffeted years had sat down for the moment without a companion.
He had thrown upon the bench beside him his sun-faded, rain-faded,
shapeless cap, uncovering much bronzed hair; and as though by this
simple act he had cleared the way for business, he thrust one
capable-looking hand deep into one of his pockets. The fingers closed
upon what they found there, like the meshes of a deep-sea net filled
with its catch, and were slowly drawn to the surface. The catch
consisted of one-cent and five-cent pieces, representing the sales of his
morning papers. He counted the coins one by one over into the palm of
the other hand, which then closed upon the total like another net, and
dropped the treasure back into the deep sea of the other pocket.
His absorption in this process had been intense; his satisfaction with the
result was complete. Perhaps after every act of successful banking there

takes place in the mind of man, spendthrift and miser, a momentary lull
of energy, a kind of brief Pax vobiscum my soul and stomach, my twin
masters of need and greed! And possibly, as the lad deposited his
earnings, he was old enough to enter a little way into this adult and
despicable joy. Be this as it may, he was not the next instant up again
and busy. He caught up his cap, dropped it not on his head but on one
of his ragged knees; planted a sturdy hand on it and the other sturdy
hand on the other knee; and with his sturdy legs swinging under the
bench, toe kicking heel and heel kicking toe, he rested briefly from
life's battle.
The signs of battle were thick on him, unmistakable. The palpable sign,
the conqueror's sign, was the profits won in the struggle of the streets.
The other signs may be set down as loss--dirt and raggedness and
disorder. His hair might never have been straightened out with a comb;
his hands were not politely mentionable; his coarse shoes, which
seemed to have been bought with the agreement that they were never to
wear out, were ill-conditioned with general dust and the special grime
of melted pitch from the typical contractor's cheapened asphalt; one of
his stockings had a fresh rent and old rents enlarged their grievances.
A single sign of victory was better even than the money in the
pocket--the whole lad