Page:Malot - Nobodys Boy, Crewe-Jones, 1916.djvu/85

 all. When you sing, sometimes I want to cry, and sometimes I want to laugh. Don't think me silly, master, but when you sing those songs, I think that I am back with dear Mother Barberin. If I shut my eyes I can see her again in our little house, and yet I don't know the words you sing, because they are Italian."

I looked up at him and saw the tears standing in his eyes; then I stopped and asked him if what I had said hurt him.

"No, my child," he said, his voice shaking, "you do not pain me; on the contrary, you take me back to my younger days. Yes, I will teach you to sing, little Remi, and, as you have a heart, you also will make people weep with your songs."

He stopped suddenly, and I felt that he did not wish to say more at that moment. I did not know the reason why he should feel sad.

The next day he cut out little pieces of wood for the music notes the same as he had for the letters. The notes were more complicated than the alphabet, and this time I found it much harder and more tedious to learn. Vitalis, so patient with the dogs, more than once lost patience with me.

"With an animal," he cried, "one controls oneself, because one is dealing with a poor dumb creature, but you are enough to drive me mad!" He threw up his hands dramatically.

Pretty-Heart, who took special delight in imitating gestures he thought funny, mimicked my master, and as the monkey was present at my