My mother barely had strength to attend the closing exercises of the high school when I graduated, and after that day she was seldom out of bed.  She could no longer direct her work, and under the expense of medicines, doctors, and someone to look after her our college fund began to diminish rapidly.  Many of her customers and some of the neighbors were very kind, and frequently brought her nourishment of one kind or another.  My mother realized what I did not, that she was mortally ill, and she had me write a long letter to my father.  For some time past she had heard from him only at irregular intervals; we never received an answer.  In those last days I often sat at her bedside and read to her until she fell asleep.  Sometimes I would leave the parlor door open and play on the piano, just loud enough for the music to reach her.  This she always enjoyed.

One night, near the end of July, after I had been watching beside her for some hours, I went into the parlor and, throwing myself into the big arm chair, dozed off into a fitful sleep.  I was suddenly aroused by one of the neighbors, who had come in to sit with her that night.  She said:  “Come to your mother at once.”  I hurried upstairs, and at the bedroom door met the woman who was acting as nurse.  I noted with a dissolving heart the strange look of awe on her face.  From my first glance at my mother I discerned the light of death upon her countenance.  I fell upon my knees beside the bed and, burying my face in the sheets, sobbed convulsively.  She died with the fingers of her left hand entwined in my hair.

I will not rake over this, one of the two sacred sorrows of my life; nor could I describe the feeling of unutterable loneliness that fell upon me.  After the funeral I went to the house of my music teacher; he had kindly offered me the hospitality of his home for so long as I might need it.  A few days later I moved my trunk, piano, my music, and most of my books to his home; the rest of my books I divided between “Shiny” and “Red.”  Some of the household effects I gave to “Shiny’s” mother and to two or three of the neighbors who had been kind to us during my mother’s illness; the others I sold.  After settling up my little estate I found that, besides a good supply of clothes, a piano, some books and trinkets, I had about two hundred dollars in cash.

The question of what I was to do now confronted me.  My teacher suggested a concert tour; but both of us realized that I was too old to be exploited as an infant prodigy and too young and inexperienced to go before the public as a finished artist.  He, however, insisted that the people of the town would generously patronize a benefit concert; so he took up the matter and made arrangements for such an entertainment.  A more than sufficient number of people with musical and elocutionary talent volunteered their services to make a program.  Among these was my brown-eyed violinist.  But our relations were not the same as they were when we had played our first duet together.  A year or so after that time she had dealt me a crushing blow by getting married.  I was partially avenged, however, by the fact that, though she was growing more beautiful, she was losing her ability to play the violin.