rels at night. Alfred sang the songs under his breath.
He drank in every word of the jokes and the farce he committed to
memory.

When they reached home the melodeon was started up again, and its
strains swelled out on the night air until the father closed the
rehearsal abruptly by ordering all to bed.

The seed had been sown; even the chaff had taken root. The clown
illusion still clung to Alfred but the minstrel idea seemed nearer
realization. Did ever a party of amateurs decide to assault the public
that they did not use a minstrel performance as their weapon?

Despite the protests of the parents, the old melodeon, notwithstanding
its age and other infirmities, was worked overtime. Alfred sang and
resang the songs they had learned or deceived themselves into believing
they had learned at the minstrels.

Billy Woods had a good ear for tunes. As Lin put it, Billy caught more
of the tunes than any of the others. Billy became a nightly visitor.
Billy's flute and the melodeon did not harmonize as the melodeon had
only three notes left in it. Lin just waited when a note was missing
until the next measure and then "ketched up" as she expressed it.

Amity Getty was another addition to the little band. He was really a
good performer on the guitar. Alfred's especial favorite in the
minstrels was the fellow who handled the tambourine. The mother said
there was not a pie pan in the house they could bake in, Alfred had them
so battered and dented thumping them on his knees, head and elbows.

"I declare, I believe the boy is going crazy; I don't know what we will
do with him," often said the mother.

Cousin Charley was of an inventive turn of mind. He had become greatly
interested in the nightly singing and fashioned a tambourine out of an
old cheese box by cutting it down. Dennis Isler put tin jingles in it
and put on a sheepskin head.

The instrument in Alfred's hands became a terror to the household. He
was banished to the commons where, surrounded by the children of the
neighborhood, he did his practicing to the delight and danger of his
audience as he persisted in finishing his antics by thumping one of the
audience on the head with his instrument of torture, which generally
sent the recipient of his thwack home, holding his head and crying. This
usually brought a complaint from the victim's parents and Alfred's
visits to the cellar accompanied by his father became so frequent that a
boy with less ardor would surely