ugh for all the world.

It was strange to see the effect of Tiny's song upon those people! How
bright their faces grew! kind words from a human heart are such an
excellent medicine--they make such astonishing cures! You would have
thought, had you been passing by the crowd that gathered around Tiny,
you would have thought an angel had been promising some good thing to
them. Whereas it was only this young Tiny, this country lad, who had
journeyed from the shadow of the Great Forest, who was telling them of a
good time surely coming!

When he had finished his song, Tiny would have put up his harp, and gone
his way, but that he could not do, because of the crowd.

"Sing again!" the people cried,--the beggars and rich men together (it
was a long time since they had spoken with one voice). Did I tell you
that a number of rich men had gathered, like a sort of outer wall,
around the crowd of poor people which stood next to Tiny?

"Sing again," they cried; and loud and clear above the other voices said
one, "There is but a solitary singer in the world that sings in such a
strain as that. And he, I thought, was far away. Can this be he?"

Then Tiny's heart leaped within him, hearing it, and he said to himself:
"If my father and mother were but here to see it!" And he sang again--
and still for the poor, and the weary, and the sick, and the
faint-hearted, until the street became as silent as a church where the
minister is saying, "Glory be unto the Father." And indeed it was just
then a sacred temple, where a sacred voice was preaching in a most
sacred cause.

I'm sure you know by this time what the "cause" was? And while he sang,
the rich men of the outer circle were busy among themselves, even while
they listened, and presently the person who had before spoken, made his
way through the crowd, carrying a great purse filled with silver, and he
said, "You are the poet himself--do with this what you think best. We
have a long time been looking for you in the world. Come home with me,
and dwell in my house, oh, Poet, I pray you."

Tiny took the heavy purse, and looked at it, and from it to the people.

Then said he--oh, what melody was in his voice, how sweet his
words!--"None of you but are my friends--you are more--my brothers and
sisters. Come and tell me how much you need." As he spoke, he looked
at the woman who stood nearest him, with the dead baby in her arms. Her
eyes met his, and she threw back the old