word from
Simeon Holly, David had begun to play.

From his seat by the stove Simeon Holly watched his son's face--and
smiled. He saw amazement, unbelief, and delight struggle for the
mastery; but before the playing had ceased, he was summoned by Perry
Larson to the kitchen on a matter of business. So it was into the
kitchen that John Holly burst a little later, eyes and cheek aflame.

"Father, where in Heaven's name DID you get that boy?" he demanded.
"Who taught him to play like that? I've been trying to find out from
him, but I'd defy Sherlock Holmes himself to make head or tail of the
sort of lingo he talks, about mountain homes and the Orchestra of Life!
Father, what DOES it mean?"

Obediently Simeon Holly told the story then, more fully than he had
told it before. He brought forward the letter, too, with its mysterious
signature.

"Perhaps you can make it out, son," he laughed. "None of the rest of us
can, though I haven't shown it to anybody now for a long time. I got
discouraged long ago of anybody's ever making it out."

"Make it out--make it out!" cried John Holly excitedly; "I should say I
could! It's a name known the world over. It's the name of one of the
greatest violinists that ever lived."

"But how--what--how came he in my barn?" demanded Simeon Holly.

"Easily guessed, from the letter, and from what the world knows,"
returned John, his voice still shaking with excitement. "He was always
a queer chap, they say, and full of his notions. Six or eight years ago
his wife died. They say he worshiped her, and for weeks refused even to
touch his violin. Then, very suddenly, he, with his four-year-old son,
disappeared--dropped quite out of sight. Some people guessed the
reason. I knew a man who was well acquainted with him, and at the time
of the disappearance he told me quite a lot about him. He said he was
n't a bit surprised at what had happened. That already half a dozen
relatives were interfering with the way he wanted to bring the boy up,
and that David was in a fair way to be spoiled, even then, with so much
attention and flattery. The father had determined to make a wonderful
artist of his son, and he was known to have said that he believed--as
do so many others--that the first dozen years of a child's life are the
making of the man, and that if he could have the boy to himself that
long he would risk the rest. So it seems he carried out his notion
until he was taken sick, and had to quit--poor