, when the
musician (who was a citizen of the town, by-the-way) drew out a
thick roll of score, which he explained to be a Fantasia of his own
composition, never published.

"_This_ it was impossible the boy could have heard; there could be no
trick of memory in this; and on this trial," triumphantly, "Tom would
fail."

The manuscript was some fourteen pages long,--variations on an inanimate
theme. Mr. Oliver refused to submit the boy's brain to so cruel a test;
some of the audience, even, interfered; but the musician insisted, and
took his place. Tom sat beside him,--his head rolling nervously from
side to side,--struck the opening cadence, and then, from the first note
to the last, gave the _secondo_ triumphantly. Jumping up, he fairly
shoved the man from his seat, and proceeded to play the treble with more
brilliancy and power than its composer. When he struck the last octave,
he sprang up, yelling with delight:--

"Um's got him, Massa! um's got him!" cheering and rolling about the
stage.

The cheers of the audience--for the boys especially did not wait to
clap--excited him the more. It was an hour before his master could quiet
his hysteric agitation.

That feature of the concerts which was the most painful I have not
touched upon: the moments when his master was talking, and Tom was left
to himself,--when a weary despair seemed to settle down on the distorted
face, and the stubby little black fingers, wandering over the keys,
spoke for Tom's own caged soul within. Never, by any chance, a merry,
childish laugh of music in the broken cadences; tender or wild, a
defiant outcry, a tired sigh breaking down into silence. Whatever
wearied voice it took, the same bitter, hopeless soul spoke through all:
"Bless me, even me, also, O my Father!" A something that took all the
pain and pathos of the world into its weak, pitiful cry.

Some beautiful caged spirit, one could not but know, struggled for
breath under that brutal form and idiotic brain. I wonder when it will
be free. Not in this life: the bars are too heavy.

You cannot help Tom, either; all the war is between you. He was in
Richmond in May. But (do you hate the moral to a story?) in your own
kitchen, in your own back-alley, there are spirits as beautiful, caged
in forms as bestial, that you _could_ set free, if you pleased. Don't
call it bad taste in me to speak for them. You know they are more to be
pitied than Tom,--for they are dumb.

KINDERGARTEN