Scan 161
The American History and Encyclopedia of Music, 1910
4 lines. Read by computer on 10 September 2026. Printed page 127. See the scan on archive.org.
1then old and "run-down," and came there to bring up his children amid the healthful and ennobling influence of country life. Your father writes me that your brothers are just now talking about leaving the farm on which they have spent their youthful years and of going away to prepare for professional careers. This is the tragedy of life in the old homestead: the roof-tree is planted, the roots strike down deep, the trunk grows up sturdily, the branches twine and intertwine, when suddenly the largest branch is lopped off to make a corner-post for a new house far down the river or in the distant city. In time, there are only the stump and the dying roots left. You are old enough, I think, to understand this. If your brothers go to the city to study a profession, it will be necessary for them to remain in the city to follow that profession. So the branches of your family roof-tree will begin to thin out.
3Your father writes me also that for the last three or more years you have been giving unmistakable signs of musical talent; that some years ago, in order to make the home more attractive to his children than any other place in the world, he procured for their use several musical instruments — two violins, a 'cello, a flute, and a reed organ of the best style. I already knew, of course, that every member of the family had a good voice, could read music readily, and that all sang in the village choir; also that a favorite pastime of the family and of singing friends and neighbors, among them our dear old singing-school teacher, Moses Cheney, was to gather, especially in the long winter evenings, and sing the popular hymns, anthems, and songs of the day. Knowing this, I was not greatly surprised to hear that some one in the company should manifest special musical talent. That it should prove to be my own dear little nephew is, of course, particularly gratifying to me, who all my life have been a professional musician. Having been over the road, I have learned the turning-points, the by-ways, and the hedges. Having been "ground" to some extent by "the mills of
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