Where you lived, wasn't there ever anybody who called him by name ?" David shook his head.
"I told you.

We were all alone, father and I, in the little house far up on the mountain." "And--your mother ?" Again David shook his head.
"She is an angel-mother, and angel-mothers don't live in houses, you know." There was a moment's pause; then gently the man asked:-- "And you always lived there ?" "Six years, father said." "And before that ?" "I don't remember." There was a touch of injured reserve in the boy's voice which the man was quick to perceive.

He took the hint at once.
"He must have been a wonderful man--your father!" he exclaimed.
The boy turned, his eyes luminous with feeling.
"He was--he was perfect! But they--down here--don't seem to know--or care," he choked.
"Oh, but that's because they don't understand," soothed the man.

"Now, tell me--you must have practiced a lot to play like that." "I did--but I liked it." "And what else did you do?
and how did you happen to come--down here ?" Once again David told his story, more fully, perhaps, this time than ever before, because of the sympathetic ears that were listening.
"But now" he finished wistfully, "it's all, so different, and I'm down here alone.

Daddy went, you know, to the far country; and he can't come back from there." "Who told you--that ?" "Daddy himself.