Show A CHRISTMAS SKETCH I I All 1 Christmas Eve What day In all the years looking back through the vista ll of the centuries Is fraught with so many memories BO dear to the human heart Thc world around over the white steppes of Russia down the blue Danube along the banks of the castled Rhine the prince and the pauper throughout the Christian world alike hal this sacred festival In the little fishingsmack tossing fat l out at sea In the palace of tho millionaire lionaire all hearts beat In unison I swelling the grand anthem of adoration j of the little child born in Bethlehem twenty centuries ago whose glory and splendor undiminished have Increased throughout all the ages We are In a large city Witness the goodnatured bustle on every hand the hurrying crowds the arms burdened j with packages gifts purchased with care and thought and alas often with pinching economy to visit the happiness happi-ness on those we love p All Is joyous All Is gayetyl But as we pass along a bystreet laughing at the whirling snowflakes the mischievous Ious I-ous wind whisks l in our faces list to I I those touchingly sweet strains of music floating down from that partlyopened window of this dilapidated tenement we are passing Ah Herr Bebel is celebrating says the rotund butcher from across the way Ah yes ITerr Babel was celebrating cele-brating In his lonely attic retreat far from the pushing crowds the world forgetting and by the world forgot No fire burned brightly to cheer him No grandchildren clung around his knees I Old and gray threadbare and worn his beloved violin nestled tenderly under his chin as if loved it loved him in return the mute partaker ol his jo sand s-and sorrows And as he played he was selling the story of his life to music i l the little triumphs of his boyhoods J liappy days in the small Alsatian village j blue lage sleeping among the faraway f hills the grander fame as the petted leader of famous European orchestras the decorations from royal hands all these memories flitted along the strings and out upon the vibrant air But ever and ever as he played the music grew In sweetness and mournful sadness sad-ness as a realizing sense of gaunt misery oorwhelmcd him Trembling from hunger and shivering with cold tears glistened in the corners of the I closed old eyes and as he drifted into the soft melody and pathos of My Old Kentucky Home he played as one I Inspired The melting tones slipped gently from the strings as sweet and nure as baby prayers the swelling cadenza from the G string he loved so well sang the wail of a broken heart Ineffably sweet Ineffably sad and away In the dark shadowy corners of the room one could almost feel the presence I pres-ence of the angels walling to bear upward up-ward to the Prince of Peace the soul of the old First Violin a priceless Christmas gift The night grew colder the stars twinkled In the Ice and snow I of the city streets but the morning sunbeams heralding the Christmas dawn awakened not the old musician for Herr Bebel has passed out of the I cold Into the sunshine and gladness of heaven |