Show i HILDA So you wish to hear Hildas story Mr Garatone said pus iDg hie chair from the table where we had lingered after dessert I had not sean my old friend Paul Garatone for ten yea e and had accepted ac-cepted an invitation to dine with him at his countryhouse near the city of S I knew that he had lost his only child and had no near relatives EO that I was astonished to be introduced intro-duced by him to a very lovely girl as Itmy daughter Hilda JJ Mrs Garstone too seemed full of the tenderest maternal ma-ternal affection for her There was something strange and peculiar about this girl who could not have been more than sixteen years old Her beautiful face was full of intelligence and interest in the topics discussed but ut times the brightness clouded over and her eyes grew vacant and unmeaning When Mrs Garatone and the young lady left us at dinner I asked a ques tion which elicited the answer I have quoted So you want to know who Hilda is he continued meditatively Well now thats a question I aak myself fifty times a day Perhaps you remember to have heard of a most destructive tornado vhioh swept over this section oi the country about ten years ago You must have need in California at that time but the papers wore full of its ravages and just around here it was at its worst All the houses in Hickory Hick-ory Flat about a mile from this place were blown flat to the ground and I cant tell you how many lives were lost and how many people maimed bnd wounded You can follow j fol-low the tracK of the storm even now in the forest between here and the Flat It cut a broad road just as clean and straight as the best engineer engi-neer could do and in the space of a few minutes I I had noticed a lurid churning I look in the clouds about noon You see Ive been in tornadoes before in j I I my life and there are one or two peculiarities i culiarities in the movements of the I clouds common to all of them eo I oalled to the old lady to make every thing snug and windproof and went out to the lawn yonder to take a survey sur-vey III declare to you between the time I turned my spectacles up to the skies and found myself jammed and impaled in that Cherokee rose hedge at the furthest end of the lawn wasnt more than a second The hurricane was soon over and I looked upon a scene of devastation All my fine oaks on the lawn were gone and every outbuilding ot the premises Fortunately my dwelling house was not on the direct track of the tempest which only tore away the southern balcony t could scarcely walk I was so torn and bruised and my clothes hung in ribbons around me I could hear she women screaming in the house but the wind was still high and I had but little strength to breast it As I wag making my way along about fifty paces from my front steps I stumbled over something I looked down and there lay a child without a stitch of clothing and apparantly dead By this time my Rife had seen me and came running out with all the servants after her for I was supposed sup-posed to be killed and when they saw my bleeding face and dilapidated garments of course Nanny had to go off in her usual hysterics But I managed to get the poor little waif picked up and carried to the house though it was hours and hours before those blue eyes opened Thais the wav Hilda came to us But how did she get there I I asked and where did she come from romI I dont know Whether blown here by the wind or driven before it who can say for no one within fifty miles of this place had ever seen her As I said before there wa ne clothing cloth-ing by which she could be identified and her poor little body was bruited black and blue We have one clue alone but I think it is a very certain one A few minutes before the storm a wagon with an emigrant family passed through the Flat There were a mite and woman and some children child-ren but no one noticed them particularly particu-larly save to ese that they were strangers and foreigners Some said they were Germans others Sweeda but as no one understood a word they said the matter remains doubtful Half a mile from the Flat the storm maats hvestruck them for debris of the wagon and the bodies of the man and the woman were found crushed under a large l fallen f tree The re main twocnuaren were picked up iartnVwt > odi hot far from the wagon bat ao 7 torn and mutilated by the etorm Us to have hardly the semblance < jf7hutnan beings J 5f course Hilda must have belonged be-longed to them I said Well after trying to revive Hilda for hours after we took her in her eyes opened but they were the most vacant eyes I ever saw in a human face She was apparently idiotic but yet at moments strange gleam of intelligence in-telligence lighted op her facethough she did not utter a word She puzzled us enough for many days but though apparently unable to articulate she evidently heard distinctly dis-tinctly and when she cried whioh w teldom itwaa a kind of low weeping weep-ing not like a dumb person She never seemed to make an < < effort to articulate ticulate but aha grew fond of us in her dumb way That is she was affectionate when the intelligent look came into her eyes but grew stolid and indifferent and hardly seemed to know us when the idiotic fit came onnt looked tome like a perpetual straggle between mental 1 forces and utter larkneesof the mind Of course you consulted physicians physi-cians About fifty first and last All disagreed in their diagnosis but all reached one decision They couldnt see why she didnt speak in her intelligent in-telligent moments She must be left to time but time wouldnt have done j without Herr Strahi a young musician musi-cian wLD was taken ill at my hours on his way to the Flat where he bad been invited to take charge of a music class You know Nanny You know God bless her Its enough for anyone any-one to be dependent on her care and kindness for her whole motherly soul to go out to them Thus young Rudolph Ru-dolph Strahi was a poor stranger but I tell you my wife nursed and coddled cod-dled him as if he had been the President Presi-dent The first day he was able to crawl into the sittingroom she made a gala day She filled the sitting room with flowers and vines and even trailed one over our poor Gertrudes piano She was our niece you know and adopted daughter and she died before she was eighteen It nearly killed poor Nanny and she took up a notion that nothing that had belonged to Gertrude should be touched Her clothes moulded in the armories and her piano was locked No one Nanny said should touch the keys ca which her darhnga hand had restedWell Well Strahi came tottering feebly in leaning on a stick and when ho saw the flowers and adornments he called out heavenly and all kinds of German exaggerations but soon his eyes > lighted on the piano and then he saw nothing else Ab my goot friends he cried going to it Behold what is more dan all de medicines in de worlt My soul is starving yes it ia reaching out for de mom ic Nanny hesitated You know a notion will bold a woman stronger than anything else in the world But he didnt like either to refuse her patients wish as he stood there with his hollow eyes full of entreaty So she stammered out Id like to have you play Herr Strahi but one hand only has ever touched that instrument and it lies cold in the grave My Gertrude was only eighteen when she died II Mein goat frent he said nol emnly do you never think dat your pure eighteenyearold child who has taken her placa among de angels in heaven and has learned de blessed harmonies baa forgotten de earth mooeio Dat is for us to give language lan-guage utterance to de yearnings for de infinite and why would you keep de keys which hold it locked and silent Let me play for you my goot front Nanny weakened right oil and handed him the key and while he was tuning and fixing the instrument the stood at one of the windows and looked out though I knew she didnt see anything before her When he be gan to play some piece which seemed full of tears and full of bope she turned round and I SAW he had conquered con-quered her What a wonderful musician mu-sician the man wit How be ran through the gHtnut of feeling and moved ua at wail In the midst of it all Hilda came rushing in hAr fucp ae vale as death and her eye blazing with ptrange excitement ex-citement With H movement of his hand Strahi pointed her out to us and went on playing some soft soothing melodv Then suddenly he burst out I into a 3ote + nacn a Urn A cradlesong cradle-song and Hilda who step by step I had drawn near to him first uttered a kind of eobbirg nap and then her voice joined his ing u t > clear and itrOng acd every wor i articulated distinctly IIIn spite of hid astonishment Strahi had presence of mind to continue con-tinue but Nanny and I were overcome with astonishment And made an imprudent im-prudent motion towards Hilda for ehe suddenly stopped and would bave fallen to the ground if I had not caught her After hat her improvement was steady She did not day much and her words were in German but her memory had failed aa to the past incidents in-cidents of life It was only songs aha remembered perfectly She had forgotten German but in her sleep sometimes cries out 0 mutter mutter but yet she has no recollection of her mother You must hear her sing and play if you wish to enjoy the very spirit of melody I lost eight of my friends the Gar atones for two years Then in answer to a lotter of mine came one from Paul Garatone You ask after Undine Un-dine he wrote Alas our bottle is loft unto ua deeelate II Youve been so good to me mother ahe said when dying and Ive had nothing but love to give you Ive been trying to remember something some-thing all my life and lihink it will come to me where I am Roing It In that country beyond the stars whatever the secret of her life may have been the pure aweet spirit of Hilda has learned it I |