The exhibition ended with this rare exhibit of eloquence. Trove
announced the organization of a singing-school for Monday evening
of the next week, and then suppressed emotion burst into noise.
The Linley school-house had become as a fount of merry sound in the
still night; then the loud chorus of the bells, diminishing as they
went away, and breaking into streams of music and dying faint in
the far woodland.
One Nelson Cartright--a jack of all trades they called him--was the
singing-master. He was noted far and wide for song and penmanship.
Every year his intricate flourishes in black and white were on
exhibition at the county fair.
"Wal, sir," men used to say thoughtfully, "ye wouldn't think he
knew beans. Why, he's got a fist bigger'n a ham. But I tell ye,
let him take a pen, sir, and he'll draw a deer so nat'ral, sir,
ye'd swear he could jump over a six-rail fence. Why, it is
wonderful!"
Every winter he taught the arts of song and penmanship in the four
districts from Jericho to Cedar Hill. He sang a roaring bass and
beat the time with dignity and precision. For weeks he drilled the
class on a bit of lyric melody, of which a passage is here given:--
"One, two, three, ready, sing," he would say, his ruler cutting the
air, and all began:--
Listen to the bird, and the maid, and the bumblebee,
Tra, la la la la, tra, la la la la,
Joyfully we'll sing the gladsome melody,
Tra, la, la, la, la.
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