Dis­cords begins as a swirl of ten­sion set­tles over the vil­lage, sparked by the sud­den death of an unfa­mil­iar man in Farmer Holly’s barn. The vil­lagers, puz­zled by the pres­ence of the stranger and his pecu­liar son, are quick to label them as vagabonds. Yet there is some­thing odd in how the boy speaks and behaves—too refined to be ordi­nary, too serene to fit the mold of hard­ship. David, unaware of the funer­al plans for his father, remains absorbed in the words of a final let­ter left behind. In it, he is told to embrace the world’s beau­ty and wait patient­ly for reunion in a dis­tant, peace­ful realm. This per­spec­tive, built entire­ly on trust and har­mo­ny, con­trasts sharply with the cold stares and assump­tions of those around him. The boy is viewed not just as an orphan but as a mystery—one that seems odd­ly self-con­tained and con­tent despite his loss.

The Hol­ly house­hold, mean­while, grap­ples with what to do about the boy left in their care. Mrs. Hol­ly, moved by David’s gen­tle pres­ence and frag­ile sit­u­a­tion, wish­es to keep him at least for a time. Her hus­band, Sime­on, is far less con­vinced. He sees no val­ue in David’s talk of music and flow­ers, dis­miss­ing them as idle dis­trac­tions. To Sime­on, use­ful­ness is defined through labor—tasks that pro­duce results. He sets David a test: fill the wood­box, a sim­ple enough job, but a sym­bol­ic line drawn between prac­ti­cal­i­ty and the intan­gi­ble world David clings to. The boy accepts the task but quick­ly drifts into nature’s embrace, his atten­tion cap­tured by a but­ter­fly­’s wings and the col­ors bloom­ing in a flowerbed. Inspired, he lifts his vio­lin and begins to play.

Music, to David, is more than sound—it is a lan­guage through which the world speaks. As he plays, his chores go undone, but his heart feels full. When Sime­on finds the box emp­ty and David lost in melody, frus­tra­tion fol­lows. The boy is scold­ed not for lazi­ness but for fail­ing to under­stand the val­ue placed on effort, on “real work.” David apol­o­gizes and promis­es to do bet­ter, yet it’s clear he doesn’t grasp what Sime­on tru­ly wants. For David, music and chores exist in sep­a­rate dimensions—one eter­nal and mean­ing­ful, the oth­er root­ed in neces­si­ty. That gap, wide and unmov­ing, mir­rors the grow­ing dis­con­nect between child and care­tak­er.

Still, there is a sub­tle change stir­ring beneath the sur­face. Mrs. Hol­ly, though qui­et in her thoughts, watch­es David more intent­ly. She sens­es some­thing spe­cial, some­thing her husband’s log­ic refus­es to enter­tain. To her, the boy’s sor­row, his resilience, and his musi­cal gift hint at a life shaped not by idle­ness, but by a dif­fer­ent kind of discipline—one forged in qui­et soli­tude and emo­tion­al rich­ness. David, even with­out know­ing it, offers them a new way of see­ing the world. Through his music and his unguard­ed approach to liv­ing, he chal­lenges the harsh lines of duty and shows that beau­ty, too, can be a form of labor—one that heals, uplifts, and con­nects.

The chap­ter also intro­duces the cen­tral metaphor of life as an orches­tra. Sime­on, speak­ing stern­ly, claims that every per­son must con­tribute, not mere­ly drift on the tunes of oth­ers. David lis­tens but reimag­ines the anal­o­gy. To him, every note mat­ters, not just the ones that pow­er machines or fill barns. A but­ter­fly, a vio­lin, a flower—they have their place in the orches­tra too. The music he plays is not to avoid work, but to hon­or life, some­thing his father taught him through expe­ri­ence rather than words. That qui­et resis­tance to the util­i­tar­i­an mind­set sets David apart, and it’s this dif­fer­ence that both iso­lates and defines him.

In time, the house­hold may shift. The vio­lin, once viewed as a toy, becomes hard­er to ignore when it turns hard hearts soft. As the sto­ry unfolds, the dis­so­nance between David and the world around him may yet find res­o­lu­tion. But in this chap­ter, it lingers—discordant, unre­solved, and qui­et­ly aching. David’s strug­gle to belong in a place that does­n’t under­stand his rhythm lays the foun­da­tion for what lies ahead. For now, the music plays on—uncertain, hope­ful, and haunt­ing in its puri­ty.