a single poem.
Yet, goodness me, what thoughts I have! But they aren't real thoughts--what
you would regularly call thoughts. Things go racing and tingling in my
head, but I can never get them down. They are just feelings."

As he spoke, the boy gazed intently through the chimney bricks out into
another world. The fireplace was its portal and he seemed to wait for the
fires to cool before entering into its possession. It was several moments
before he spoke again.

"I don't want you to think me ridiculous, but so few understand. If only I
could master the tools! Perhaps my thoughts are old, but they come to me
with such freshness and they are so unexpected. Could I only solve the
frets and spaces inside me here, I could play what tune I chose. But my
feelings are cold and stale before I can get them into thoughts. I have no
doubt, however, that they are just as real as those other feelings that in
time, after much scratching, get into final form and become poetry. I
know of course that a man's reach should exceed his grasp--it's hackneyed
enough--but just for once I would like to pull down something when I have
been up on tiptoe for a while.

"Sometimes I get an impression of pity--a glance up a dark hallway--an old
woman with a shawl upon her head--a white face at a window--a blind fiddler
in the street--but the impression is gone in a moment. Or a touch of beauty
gets me. It may be nothing but a street organ in the spring. Perhaps you
like street organs, too?"

"I do, indeed!" I cried. "There was one today outside my window and my feet
kept wiggling to it."

The boy clapped his hands. "I knew that you would be like that. I hoped for
it on the hill. As for me, when I hear one, I'm so glad that I could cry
out. In its lilt there is the rhythm of life. It moves me more than a
hillside with its earliest flowers. Am I absurd? It is equal to the pipe of
birds, to shallow waters and the sound of wind to stir me to thoughts of
April. Today as I came downtown, I saw several merry fellows dancing on
the curb. There are tunes, too, upon the piano that send me off. I play a
little myself. I see you have a piano. Do you still play?"

"A little, rather sadly," I replied.

"That's too bad, but perhaps you sing?"

"Even worse."

"Dear me, that's too bad. I have rather a voice myself. Well, as I was
saying, when I hear those tunes, I curl up with the smoke and blow forth
from the chimney. If I walk upon the street when the w