The Junior Classics, Volume 7: Stories of Courage and Heroism
History
The Junior Classics, Volume 7: Stories of Courage and Heroism
Children's literature
As he trudged along the lonely road from town to town, or made for
himself a path through the unbroken forest, he often thought of
the good God, and of how all men were children of the One Father.
Sometimes he would burst out singing the words of a song which he
had learned when he was a young man.
"Millions loving, I embrace you,
All the world this kiss I send!
Brothers, o'er yon starry tent
Dwells a God whose love is true!"
These words, by the way, are a part of a great poem you may some
day read. And they once so stirred the heart of a great musician
that he set them to the finest music the world has ever heard.
And now the great thought of a loving God and the great music of
a loving man comforted the lonely traveller.
The old man wandered about from village to village, which in those
days were scattered far apart, with miles and miles of prairie land
stretching between them, and sometimes woodland and rivers, too,
separated one village from the next. At night he usually earned his
crust of bread and lodgings by mending the teakettle or wash-boiler
of some farmer's wife, or by soldering on the handle of her tin
cup or the knob to her tea-pot, as he always carried in one of his
coat pockets a small charcoal stove and a bit of solder. He always
carried under his arm or over his shoulder a green baize bag, and
when the mending was done he would oftentimes draw out of this
green bag an old violin and begin to play, and the farmer, as well
as his wife and the children, would gather around him and listen
to his strange music.
Sometimes it was gay and sometimes it was sad, but always sweet.
Sometimes he sang words that he himself had written, and sometimes
the songs which had been written by the great masters. But mending
broken tinware and playing an old violin were not the only things
he did to help the world along. As he wandered from place to place
he often noticed how rich the soil was, and he would say to himself,
"Some day this will be a great country with thousands of people
living on this land, and though I shall never see them, they may
never read my verses or hear my name, still I can help them, and
add some things to their lives."
So whenever a farmer's wife gave him an apple to eat he carefully
saved every seed that lay hidden in the heart of the apple, and
next day as he trudged along he would stoop down every now and then
and plant a few of the seeds and then carefully cover them with the
rich black soil of the prairie. Then he would look up reverently
to the sky and say, "I can but plant the seed, dear Lord, and Thy
clouds may water them, but Thou alone can give the increase. Thou
only can cause this tiny seed to grow into a tree whose fruit
shall feed my fellow-men." Then the God-like love that would fill
his heart at such a thought would cause his face to look young
again, and his eyes to shine as an angel's eyes must shine, and
oftentimes he would sing in clear rich tones--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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