er babies usually cry. She says that the familiar airs
of the barrel organs, which were played in the street every day, were
all added to my repertoire in due time, correct as to melody, although I
was too young to enunciate properly. My mother did not think it out of
the ordinary for her baby to be so musically inclined, young as I was. I
was her first and only child.

When I was three years old I sang in my first church concert. My
childish voice rose up bravely; and my mother distinctly remembers that
I had perfect self-possession and never showed the slightest sign of
stage fright. When my song was finished, and the kind applause had
subsided, I stepped to the edge of the platform and spoke to her down in
the front row.

"Did I do it well, mamma?" I asked, not at all disconcerted while every
one laughed.

I cannot remember the time when I did not intend to sing and act. As
soon as I was a little older it was decided that I should take piano
lessons.

[Illustration: MR. AND MRS. SYDNEY D. FARRAR]

But at once I made strenuous objection to the necessary restraint, an
objection which in after years manifested itself in much that I
attempted. I could not force myself to study according to rule or
tradition. I wanted to try out things my own way, according to impulse,
just when and how the spirit within me moved. I could not drudge at
scales, and therefore found the lessons irksome. I preferred to
improvise upon the piano, and I had a strange fondness for playing
everything upon the black keys.

"Why do you use only the black keys?" my mother asked me once.

"Because the white keys seem like angels and the black keys like devils,
and I like devils best," I replied. It was the soft half-tones of the
black keys which fascinated me, and to this day I prefer their sensuous
harmony to that of the more brilliant "angels."

My mother offered me a tricycle--one of those weird three-wheeled
vehicles in vogue at the time--if I would learn my piano lessons
according to rule; but I had all too little patience and my father gave
me the tricycle anyhow, as well as a pony later. These were some of my
few amusements. In fact, I cared little for child's play at any time in
my early youth, and nothing for outdoor sports. I spent most of my time
with books and music, or playing with animals.

Among my animal friends was a large Newfoundland dog. One day my mother
came into the back yard and found me trying to make him act as a h