codgers might get together some time and with many a hummed and
prefatory, "Do, mi, Sol, do; Sol, mi... mi-i-i-i," finally manage to
quaver out the sweet old tunes we learned when we were little tads, each
with a penny in his fat, warm hand: "Shall we Gather at the River?"
and "Work, for the Night is Coming"; and what was the name of that one
about:

"The waves shall come and the rolling thunder shock
Shall beat upon the house that is founded on a rock,
And it never shall fall, never, never, never."

What the proper English tune is to "I think when I read that sweet story
of old" I cannot tell, but I am sure it can never melt my heart as that
one in the old "Musical Leaves." with its twistful repetitions of the
last line:

"I should like to have been with Him then,
I should like to have been with Him then,
When He took little children like lambs to His fold,
I should like to have been with Him then."

I fear we could not sing that without breaking down. As we recall it, we
draw an inward fluttering breath, something grips our throats and makes
them ache, our eyes blur, and a tear slips down upon the cheek, not of
sorrow--God knows not all of sorrow--but if we had it all to live over
again, how differently we--oh, well, it's too late now, but still.

Leafing over my little girl's "Arabian Nights" the other day, when I
came to the story of "The Enchanted Horse," I found myself humming,
"Land ahead! Its fruits are waving." My father used to lead the singing
in Sabbath-school, and when he was sol-fa-ing that tune to learn it, I
was devouring that story, and was just about at the picture where Prince
What's-his-name rises up into the air on the Enchanted Horse, with his
true love hanging on behind, and all the multitude below holding their
turbans on as they look up and exclaim: "Well, if that don't beat the
Dutch!"

And another tune still excites in me the sullen resentment that it
did when I first heard it. In those days, just as a fellow got to the
exciting part in "Frank at Don Carlos's Ranch," or whatever the book
was, there was kindling to be split, or an armful of wood to be brought
in, or a pitcher of water from the well, or "run over to Mrs. Boggs's
and ask her if she won't please lend me her fluting-iron," or "run down
to Galbraith's and get me a spool of white thread, Number 60, and hurry
right back, because then I want you to go over to Serepta Downey's
and take her that pol