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The old schoolhouse seemed to swell to the mellow harmony from his big throat. To me those eight notes, as Bear-Tone sang them, were a sudden revelation of what music may be. "I'll try you first, my boy," he then said, pointing to Newman Darnley, a young fellow about twenty years old who sat at the end of the front row of seats. "Step right out here."

As we were getting into the pung to go home after the meeting, and Helen and her older sister, Elizabeth, were setting off, Bear-Tone dashed out, bareheaded, with his big face beaming. "Be sure you come again," he said to her, in a tone that was almost imploring. "You can sing! Oh, you can sing! I'll teach you! I'll teach you!"

Greatly embarrassed, Newman shambled forth and, turning, faced us. "Now, sir," said the master, "catch the key-note from me. Do! Now re mi," and so forth. Bear-Tone had great difficulty in getting Newman through the scale. "'Fraid you never'll make a great singer, my boy," he said, "but you may be able to grumble bass a little, if you prove to have an ear that can follow. Next on that seat."

That was my first winter in Maine, and the teacher at that singing school was not Seth Clark, but an itinerant singing master widely known as "Bear-Tone." As opportunities for musical instruction thereabouts were limited, the old Squire, who loved music and who was himself a fair singer, had advised us to go.

The pupil so designated was a Bagdad boy named Freeman Knights. He hoarsely rattled off, "Do, re, mi, fa, sol," all on the same tone. When Bear-Tone had spent some moments in trying to make him rise and fall on the notes, he exclaimed: "My dear boy, you may be able to drive oxen, but you'll never sing.

When Bear-Tone bade me sing the scale, fear so constricted my vocal cords that I squealed rather than sang. "Sonny, there's lots of things a boy can do besides sing," Bear-Tone said as he laughingly consigned me to the outer darkness. "It's no great blessing, after all." He patted my shoulder. "I can sing a little, but I've never been good for much else. So don't you feel bad about it."

It wouldn't do you any good to stay here, and as the room is crowded the best thing you can do is to run home." Opening the door, he gave Freeman a friendly pat on the shoulder and a push into better air outside. Afterwards came Freeman's sister, Nellie Knights; she could discern no difference between do and la at which Bear-Tone heaved a sigh.

Helen's parents were opposed to having their daughter become a professional singer. They were willing that she should sing in church and at funerals, but not in opera. For a long time Bear-Tone labored to convince them that a voice like Helen's has a divine mission in the world, to please, to touch and to ennoble the hearts of the people.

Bear-Tone had now tested all the voices except one, and his face showed that he had not been having a very pleasant time. Up in the back seat there still remained one girl, Helen Thomas, who had, according to common report, a rather good voice; yet she was so modest that few had ever heard her either sing or recite. I saw her come forward, when the master beckoned, and sing her do, re, mi.

Why, Squire, that girl's voice is a discovery! And it will grow in her, Squire! It is just starting now, but by the time she's twenty-five it will come out wonderful." The soprano of the particular quality that Bear-Tone called "deep tribble" is that sometimes called a "falcon" soprano, or dramatic soprano, in distinction from light soprano.