Michael Angelo Buonarroti | Page 4

girl grew up and a dear little baby daughter came
to her. She was still very, very poor, but she saved and scrimped, and
scrimped and saved, for she meant that this baby girl should not long
and long for the music that never came. She should have music
lessons."
"Was it--me?" whispered Penelope, with tremulous lips.
Hester drew a long breath.
"Yes, dear. I was the little girl long ago, and you are the little girl of
to-day. And when the piano came, Penelope, I found in it all those
songs that the winds and the trees used to sing to me. Now the sun
shines brighter and the birds sing sweeter--and all this beautiful world
is yours--all yours. Oh, Penelope, are n't you glad?"

Penelope raised a tear-wet face and looked into her mother's shining
eyes.
"Glad?--oh, mother!" she cried fervently. Then very softly,
"Mother--do you think--could you teach me?-- Oh, I want to play just
like that--just like that!"

The Folly of Wisdom
Until his fiftieth year Jason Hartsorn knew nothing whatever about the
position of his liver, kidneys, lungs, heart, spleen, and stomach except
that they must be somewhere inside of him; then he attended the
auction of old Doctor Hemenway's household effects and bid off for
twenty-five cents a dilapidated clothes basket, filled with books and
pamphlets. Jason's education as to his anatomy began almost at once
then, for on the way home he fished out a coverless volume from the
basket and became lost in awed wonder over a pictured human form
covered from scalp to the toes with scarlet, vine-like tracings.
"For the land's sake, Jason!" ejaculated Mrs. Hartsorn, as her husband
came puffing into the kitchen with his burden an hour later. "Now,
what trash have you been buyin'?"
"'Trash'!" panted Jason, carefully setting the basket down. "I guess you
won't call it no 'trash' when you see what 't is! It's books--learnin', Hitty.
I been readin' one of 'em, too. Look a-here," and he pulled up his shirt
sleeve and bared a brawny arm; "that's all full of teeny little pipes an'
cords. Why, if I could only skin it--"
"Jason!" screamed his wife, backing away.
"Pooh! 'T ain't nothin' to fret over," retorted Jason airily. "Besides,
you've got 'em too--ev'ry one has; see!" He finished by snatching up the
book and spreading before her horrified eyes the pictured figure with its
scarlet, vine-like tracings.
"Oh-h!" shivered the woman, and fled from the room.

Shivers and shudders became almost second nature to Mehitable
Hartsorn during the days that followed. The highly colored, carefully
explained illustrations of the kidneys, liver, heart, and lungs which the
books displayed were to her only a little less terrifying than the thought
that her own body contained the fearsome things in reality; while to her
husband these same illustrations were but the delightful means to a still
more delightful end--finding in his own sturdy frame the position of
every organ shown.
For a month Jason was happy. Then it was suddenly borne in upon him
that not always were these fascinating new acquaintances of his in a
healthy condition. At once he began to pinch and pummel himself, and
to watch for pains, being careful, meanwhile, to study the books
unceasingly, so that he might know just where to look for the pains
when they should come. He counted his pulse daily--hourly, if he
apprehended trouble; and his tongue he examined critically every
morning, being particular to notice whether or not it were pale, moist,
coated, red, raw, cracked, or tremulous.
Jason was not at all well that spring. He was threatened successively
with typhoid fever, appendicitis, consumption, and cholera, and only
escaped a serious illness in each case by the prompt application of
remedies prescribed in his books. His wife ran the whole gamut of
emotions from terror, worry, and sympathy down to indifference and
good-natured tolerance, reaching the last only after the repeated failure
of Jason's diseases to materialize.
It was about a week after Jason had mercifully escaped an attack of the
cholera that he came into the kitchen one morning and dropped heavily
into the nearest chair.
"I tell ye, my heart ain't right," he announced to his wife. "It's goin' jest
like Jehu--'palpitation,' they call it; an' I've got 'shortness of breath,'
too," he finished triumphantly.
"Hm-m; did ye catch her at last?" asked Mehitable with mild interest.
Jason looked up sharply.

"'Catch her'! Catch who?" he demanded.
"Why, the colt, of course! How long did ye have ter chase her?" Mrs.
Hartsorn's carefully modulated voice expressed curiosity, and that was
all.
Jason flushed angrily.
"Oh, I know what ye mean," he snapped. "Ye think thar don't nothin' ail
me, an' that jest fetchin' Dolly from the pasture did it all. But I