Music As A Tonic

MUSIC AS A TONIC.

An Incident of the Dying Days of a Famous Man.

A great statesman, one who had all but touched the presidency, lay dying within the walls of an old brick mansion on the eastern side of the square, where I had elected to sit.

It was my first afternoon in the square, when a hand organ began to grind forth its turgid strains before the brick house. I looked and listened, expecting with each moment that some one would issue from the house of doom and drive the dinmaker away. Instead, a bright black man, evidently a butler, came and stood on the porch. An hour went by before the repertory was exhausted. Then the black man gave the organ man a dollar, and the music and the man went quietly their ways.

"I should think it would disturb your master," I said to the black guardian of the porch.

"He likes it," he replied. "The organ comes by his orders. The doctor says it does him more good than the medicines."

For a week I went and sat on my bench and heard the organ grind. The programme never varied. The concert lasted an hour. Then came the dollar, and the music ceased.

For a full week I attended these concerts in the square. Then came a day when the hand organ did not appear. I looked at my watch. I was surprised. The concert was ten minutes overdue! What should delay him? Surely that easy dollar had its charms!

Then, as though in answer to my question, my eye caught a black flutter at the door. It was a knot of crape. The ear that had listened was dulled, the audience had departed--Blaine, secretary of state, was dead. --Everybody's Magazine.