“The next day all the people in the town were laughing at me. Stranger, there is nothing that kills a man like ridicule, and since that time I’ve cared for nothing but to trip, trip about, and do chores, and beg, and throw stones at the boys. Stranger, I sometimes wish that I was young again when I hear the robins sing. But the spring stalk never blooms twice. Stranger, I was to blame. Ah, well, my glass is almost run; it can never be turned again.” On one side of the square, across the street, was an orchard-yard, and some low, budding peach-trees. Into the boughs of this yard robins came chirping and singing while the old man was speaking, and when he became silent the birds sang again. The old man listened to the first song of the robin, and, turning to me, said:— “Robins? It’s spring again. I’m glad the winter is over. I like to hear the robins when they first begin to sing. About the only friends I’ve got is the robins.” “How is that, my friend?” “Stranger—ha—you’ve read about old Bible times? They used to stone people who stole in those days. They don’t do so now, but it’s just as bad—wrongdoers throw stones at themselves. All my troubles began with stealing a pound of butter. I began to throw stones at myself, and the world only followed me.” The sun grew warm. The purple sea rolled afar, here and there white with flying sails and with the long breakers that churned on rocks and ledges. A robin seemed to catch the inspiration of the day, and her voice quivered with thrilling joy and flute-like heraldings. “Just hear that bird,” said the old man. “I’d like to have a robin sing over me after I am gone. No one cares for me, and I seem to have lost interest in everything. Well, I’m rested now, and I must travel on.” He rose and hobbled away, his face turned upward toward the sun. When he had gone a little distance, he stopped to hear the spring robin sing again. He seemed to catch a moment of happiness; then his face fell, and he went on. I inquired in regard to the history of this man at the hotel. “He has no friends, and lives all alone,” said the clerk. “There’s a piece in the reading-book about him, or a man like him; you may have seen it.” “Is it called ‘A Melting Story’?” I asked. “Yes; I think that is the title of it.” “A Melting Story!” The last scene of all was indeed a melting story, and one that left not only tears in my eyes, but a lesson in my experience! Ten years had passed, and I was again in the same port city, and visited the same neighborhood. The memory of my old class came back to me, and with it the thought of “Trip-Trip-to-Dee-Dee.” I made inquiry of a friend about the old man. “His journey is over at last,” was the answer. “He was very old when he died,—over an hundred, I think. He lived alone, and I have heard that he died alone. He used to think the robins came to sing to him.