The Young Musician; Or, Fighting His Way

“He will have a comfortable home now, Mrs. Pope. Probably you are not aware that it cost the town two thousand dollars last year to maintain the almshouse. I can show you the it...

“There will be about enough left to pay my father’s small debts and his funeral expenses. I would not like to have him indebted to others for those. I don’t think there will be...

Philip had never liked Nick Holden. He was a coarse, rough-looking boy, his reddish face one mass of freckles, and about as unattractive as a person could be, without absolute d...

It so happened that Nick Holden met Squire Pope on the village street, and, being rather disappointed at the result of his negotiations with Philip, thought it might be a good i...

Squire Pope was not a bad man, nor was he by nature a tyrant, but he was so fully convinced of his own superior judgment that he was in all things obstinately bent on having his...

“As I was about to say, when interrupted by Nicholas, I have come to require you to give up the Violin which, without authority and against my express command, you withheld from...

Before going further, I will introduce to the reader, a citizen of Norton, who filled a position for which he was utterly unfitted. This man was Joe Tucker, in charge of the alm...

Philip regarded his captor contemptuously, and didn’t struggle to escape, knowing that he was not a match for a man five inches taller than himself. But contempt he could not he...

There was no room for Zeke to ride—that is, there was no seat for him—but he managed to clamber into the back part of the wagon, where he sat, or squatted, rather uncomfortably,...

Leaving Philip for a short time in the hands of his captor, we will follow Zeke on his errand. He didn’t have to go as far as Mr. Dunbar’s house, for he met Frank Dunbar about a...

Philip had formed his plans, and without a word of remonstrance, he obeyed. The whole interior was dingy and dirty. Mrs. Tucker was not a neat woman, and everything looked negle...

“I shouldn’t think you had time to go there and back,” said Philip, fearing that Zeke had pocketed his money and then played him false. But, as we know, he was mistaken in this.

Philip was glad to hear that all in the almshouse went to bed so early. He had not yet given up the hope of escaping that night, though he had as yet arranged no definite plan o...

It grew darker and darker in Philip’s chamber, but no one came to bring him a light. It was assumed that he would go to bed before he required one.

Though the boys had made as little noise as possible, conversing in an undertone, they had been heard by Mrs. Tucker. Her husband, as was his custom, had gone to sleep; but Mrs....

“Father would like to have you stay and assist him on the farm. He said so to me. He wouldn’t be able to pay much, but I think we would have a good time together.”

Of course, the tramp heard them, and turned in sudden alarm. As he turned, the farmer snatched the club from his hand, and he found himself unexpectedly unarmed and confronted b...

A depressing feeling of loneliness came to Phil after he had parted with Frank. He was going out into the world with no one to lean upon, and no one to sympathize with him or le...

On his way to the farmhouse, Philip ascertained that his companion’s name was Abner Webb, and that he and his brother Jonas carried on a farm of about a hundred acres. Abner app...

Schoolhouse Hall, as may be inferred, was a large hall, occupying the second story of the Center Schoolhouse, and though not originally intended for dancing-parties, answered ve...

“You’re not going to leave us so soon, Mr. Gray?” said Mrs. Webb hospitably. “We shall be glad to have you stay with us a day or two, if you can content yourself.”

At the head of the hall, in the center of a group, stood a tall, thin man, dressed in solemn black, with a violin under his arm. His face, which looked like that of a sick man,...

Philip was of fair height, for his age, with a bright, expressive face, his hair of a chestnut shade, and looking the very picture of boyish health. His very appearance made a p...

Philip’s reputation as a musician was materially increased by his second night’s performance. To adopt a military term, he had crossed swords with the veteran fiddler, Paul Beck...

As Philip and the professor passed along the principal street, they saw various stores of different kinds, with here and there a large, high, plain-looking structure, which they...

“I am only using your professional name,” answered the professor. “Don’t you know people will think a great deal more of you if they suppose you to be a foreigner?”

The next morning at breakfast, Professor Riccabocca handed Philip a copy of the Wilkesville Daily Bulletin. Pointing to a paragraph on the editorial page, he said, in a tone of...

Philip took another walk in the afternoon, and was rather amused to see how much attention he received. When he drew near the hotel he was stared at by several gaping youngsters...

Philip was still a boy, and though he had discovered that the professor was something of a humbug, and a good deal of a braggart, it had not for a moment occurred to him that he...

The reader has not forgotten that Farmer Lovett, when Philip refused to accept any compensation for assisting to frustrate the attempt at burglary, handed him a sealed envelope,...

Professor Lorenzo Riccabocca was not a wise man. It would have been much more to his interest to deal honestly with Philip, paying his share of the profits of the first performa...

It so happened that Professor Riccabocca had once before visited Knoxville, and remembered the location of the railroad station. Moreover, at the hotel, before the arrival of Ph...

“Not for the train, but for one of the passengers by the train,” responded the landlord. “Did you take notice of a man dressed in a shabby suit of black, wearing a soft hat and...

Professor Riccabocca put the wallet in his pocket with a sigh of satisfaction. There were still sixty dollars or more in it, and it was long since he had been so rich.

Though Philip did not know it, it chanced that Squire Pope’s only sister, Mrs. Cunningham, lived in Knoxville. She was a widow, fairly well off, with a young daughter, Carrie—a...

Philip played with excellent effect, and his efforts were received with as much favor at Knoxville as at Wilkesville. He was twice encored, and at the end of each of his selecti...

Now, considering the treatment which Philip had received from the squire before he left Norton, the reader can hardly feel surprised that our hero didn’t care to trust himself w...

“But I do. I can’t understand why you should act so against your own interest. You can’t expect people will come just to hear you play. You need me to help you.”

The large sums which Philip had received for his playing might have dazzled a less sensible boy. He was quite conscious that he played unusually well for a boy, but when it came...

Philip had lived so long in a country village that he had never chanced to read any of those absorbing romances in which one boy, of tender years, proves himself a match for a d...

“I shall do a good thing if I induce Henry to go home,” thought Philip. “That is rather a queer idea of his about wanting to kill Indians. It seems to me as much murder to kill...

But the boy was so frenzied with terror, and so possessed of the thought that the Indian was just like the savage warriors of the plains, of whom he had read so much, that he st...

Alexander Taylor, a Wall Street broker, sat at breakfast in his fine house on Madison Avenue. His daughter, Jennie, about thirteen years old, was the only other person at the ta...

“That strikes me as a sensible remark. Of course, a few Indian scalps would be of great use to you. I fully expected a present of one, as a trophy of my son’s valor; but still,...