The Young Musician | Page 4

and his death, therefore,
left the boy peculiarly, alone in the world. Everything reminded him of
his dead father. But he did not allow himself to dwell upon thoughts
that would depress his spirits and unfit him for the work that lay before
him.
He opened his father's desk and began to examine his papers. There
was no will, for there was nothing to leave, but in one compartment of
the desk was a thick wallet, which he opened.
In it, among some receipted bills, was an envelope, on which was
written, in his father's well-known hand:
"The contents of this envelope are probably of no value, but it will be
as well to preserve the certificate of stock. There is a bare possibility
that it may some day be worth a trifle."
Philip opened the envelope and found a certificate for a hundred shares
of the Excelsior Gold Mine, which appeared to be located in California.
He had once heard his father speak of it in much the same terms as
above.
"I may as well keep it," reflected Philip. "It will probably amount to
nothing, but there won't be much trouble in carrying around the
envelope." He also found a note of hand for a thousand dollars, signed
by Thomas Graham.
Attached to it was a slip of paper, on which he read, also in his father's
writing:
"This note represents a sum of money lent to Thomas Graham, when I
was moderately prosperous. It is now outlawed, and payment could not
be enforced, even if Graham were alive and possessed the ability to pay.
Five years since, he left this part of the country for some foreign
country, and is probably dead, and I have heard nothing from him in all
that time. It will do no harm, and probably no good, to keep his note,"
"I will keep it," decided Philip. "It seems that this and the mining
shares are all that father had to leave me. They will probably never
yield me a cent, but I will keep them in remembrance of him."
Phillip found his father's watch. It was an old-fashioned gold watch, but
of no great value even when new. Now, after twenty years' use, it
would command a very small price at the coming sale.

Ever since Philip had been old enough to notice anything, he
remembered this watch, which was so closely identified with his father
that more than anything else it called him to mind. Philip looked at it
wistfully as it lay in his hand. "I wish I could keep it," he said to
himself. "No one else will value it much, but it would always speak to
me of my father. I wonder if I might keep it?"
Philip had a mind to put it into his pocket, but the spirit of honesty
forbade.
"It must be sold," he said, with a sigh. "Without it there wouldn't be
enough to pay what we owe, and when I leave Norton, I don't want any
one to say that my father died in his debt."
There was nothing else in the desk which called for particular notice or
appeared to be of any special value. After a careful examination, Philip
closed it and looked around at the familiar furniture of the few rooms
which the house contained.
There was one object which he personally valued more than anything
else. This was his violin, on which he had learned all that he knew of
playing. His father had bought it for him four years before. It was not
costly, but it was of good tone, and Philip had passed many pleasant
hours in practicing on it.
"I can take this violin, at any rate," said Philip to himself. "It belongs to
me, and no one else has a claim on it. I think I will take it with me and
leave it at Frank Dunbar's, so that it needn't get into the sale."
He put back the violin into the case and laid it on one side. Then he sat
down in the arm-chair, which had been his father's favorite seat, and
tried to fix his mind upon the unknown future which lay before him.
He had sat there for half an hour, revolving in his mind various
thoughts and plans, when he heard a tap on the window, and looking up,
saw through the pane the coarse, red face of Nick Holden, a young
fellow of eighteen, the son of the village butcher.
"Let me in!" said Nick; "I want to see you on business."

CHAPTER III.
NICK HOLDEN'S CALL.

Philip had never liked Nick Holden. He was a coarse, rough-looking
boy, his reddish face one mass of freckles, and about as unattractive as
a person could be, without absolute deformity.