His mother Sarah Porterfield Gahan, had been up until almost

midnight on Christmas Eve, setting the unwrapped gifts under

the tree and adding additional ornaments and sweets

wherever she found room between the beeswax candles and

the hand-blown glass ornaments imported from Germany. On

Christmas morning 1891, she led the sleepy-eyed toddler and

his older cousin Julia through the arched doorway into the

parlour of their home on Bathurst Street. They hadn’t made

two steps into the large room through the ogee, before the

child espied the violin, let go her hand, and ran, stumbling,

toward the tree.
 

He fell to his knees in front of the elaborately decorated

tree, completely ignored the pink and green cinnamon

popcorn balls attached to the pine branches, the colourful

ribbon candy and the white candy canes representing the

Shepard’s staffs hanging from the heavily fruit-laden boughs.

Instead, Harvey reached out his hand and caressed the

polished top of the violin made from fine grain quarter-cut

spruce. He cautiously nudged the violin over and ran his index

finger along the glossy, varnished maple back. Finally, he

turned to his mother, his eyebrows a question mark.
 

“Yes Harvey, it is yours. Merry Christmas!”
 

The little boy sat back on his heels, placed the 1/16 Breton violin

in his lap and began to pluck the 4 wound catgut strings, his lips

curled up at the corners into the beginning of a broad smile.
 

His cousin Julia laid aside the porcelain doll, with real hair, her aunt

Sarah had dressed in an ecru bobbin-lace tea dress, an elegant

white-on-white embroidered wool fur-trimmed coat and

tiny-buttoned leather boots with matching kid leather gloves.
 

She gathered up her flannel nightgown and sat down on the

Chinese carpet next to her pyjama-clad cousin.

“Here Baby, let me show you.”

She placed the violin under his chin, gently pulled his left arm

out to full length and had him wrap his small fingers around the

scroll.

She looked at her aunt. “Good fit”.

Her aunt smiled and nodded.

Julia handed Harvey the rosined horsehair bow and

showed him how to stroke the strings.
 

Harvey’s father still in his silk dressing gown, and monogrammed

wine-coloured velvet slippers entered the room and sat himself

down on the love seat in the alcove of the oriole over looking

Bathurst Street. He couldn’t imagine what had possessed his

wife to give a 3-year-old child a violin, but she was a good wife

from a fine “lace curtain” Irish family that had done extremely

well in the new world, and she was an excellent and doting

mother to their child, so in turn, he always humoured her.
 

By New Year’s Eve, the child was playing actual songs. He had

not yet learned to read notes, but he had a good ear, perfect

pitch and was able to pick out tunes by trial and error. At age

5 he had earned the status of “child prodigy violinist” in his

native Canada and in the early summer of 1894 when green

was on the meadow and buds were all in bloom, he took his

first trip abroad with his mother and cousin to play at a

command performance for the Prince of Wales and his Danish

Princess.

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