Apostrophe to the skylark Author:Charles Warren Stoddard Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: FATHER DAMIEN AMONG HIS LEPERS IN those last days I used to seek the Father and find him, now at the top of a ladder, hammer and nail in hand; or in the garde... more »n, or the hospital ward, or the kitchen, or away on a sick-call, as the case might be. It was seldom he could sit with me, for not a moment was he really free. Once I captured him, on a plea of paying my parting call. With the greatest reluctance, and only at my urgent request, he went in search of his decoration. It was found in its neat morocco case, hidden away in an unvisited corner, with the dust an inch thick on it. "It is not for this that I am here," said he, disparagingly; and he acknowledged that he had never put the riband about his neck; indeed he had hardly looked at the bauble since the day when the Bishop desired him to wear it for the gratification of his simple flock. Once I wandered alone into the chapel; a small organ was standing near an open window; beyond the window was the very pandanustree under which Father Damien found shelter when he first came to Kalawao. I sat at the instrument, dreaming over the keys, and thinking of the life one must lead in such a spot; of the need and the lack of human sympathy; of the solitude of the soul destined to a communion with perpetual death—and, hearing a slight rustling near me, I turned, and found the chapel nearly filled with lepers, who had silently stolen in, one after another, at the sound of the organ. The situation was rather startling; but when I asked where Father Da- mien might be found they directed me, and stood aside to let me pass. I found him where I might have known he was likely to be found, working bravely among his men, he by far the most industrious of them all. As I approached them unobserved, the bell of the little chapel rang out the ...« less