lute--and while the mill-wheel turned, he played the
lute--sweet, true notes and tunes he played--in that old mill."

The boy smiled contentedly.

"And now we be a hundred Bachs. We make music for all Germany. Come!" He
sprang to his feet. "We will go to the festival, the great Bach
festival. You, my little son, shall play like a true Bach."

As they walked along the road he hummed contentedly to himself, speaking
now and then a word to the boy. "What makes one Bach great, makes all.
Remember, my child, Reinken is great--but he is only one; and Bohm and
Buxtehude, Pachelbel. But we are many--all Bachs--all great." He hummed
gayly a few bars of the choral and stopped, listening.

The boy turned his face back over the road. "They are coming," he said
softly.

"Ja, they are coming."

The next moment a heavy cart came in sight. It was laden to the brim
with Bachs and music; some laughing and some singing and some
playing--on fiddles or flutes or horns--beaming with broad faces.

The man caught up Sebastian by the arm and jumped on to the tail-board
of the cart. And thus--enveloped in a cloud of dust, surrounded by the
laughter of fun-loving men and youths--the boy came into Erfurt, to the
great festival of all the Bachs.

II

"Sh-h! It is Heinrich! Listen to him--to Heinrich!" There were nods and
smiles and soft thudding of mugs, and turning of broad faces toward the
other end of the enclosure, as a small figure mounted the platform.

He was a tiny man, unlike the others; but he carried himself with a
gentle pomposity, and he faced the gathering with a proud gesture,
holding up his hand to enjoin silence. After a few muttering rumbles
they subsided.

Sebastian, sitting between his father and a fat Bach, gulped with joy.
It was the great Heinrich--who composed chorals and fugues and gavottes
and--hush! Could it be that he was rebuking the Bachs--the great
Bachs!... Sebastian's ears cracked with the strain. He looked
helplessly at his father, who sat smiling into his empty beer-mug, and
at the fat Bach on the other side, who was gaping with open mouth at the
great Heinrich.

Sebastian looked back to the platform.

Heinrich's finger was uplifted at them sternly.... "It was Reinken who
said it. He of the Katherinenkirche has said it, in open festival, that
there is not a Bach in Germany that can play as he can play. Do you hear
that!" The little man stamped impatiently with his foot on the platform.
"H