the first public rendering of the now famous Adagio in C minor,
known sometimes as "The Prairie Wind," or perhaps better as the
Intermezzo between the second and third acts of the opera that made
Kenyon Adams' fame in Europe before he was twenty. It has been changed
but little since that first hearing there in John Dexter's church with
the Sands Memorial organ, built in the early eighties for Elizabeth Page
Sands, mother of Anne of that tribe. The composition is simplicity
itself--save for the mystical questioning that runs through it in the
sustained sevenths--a theme which Captain Morton said always reminded
him of a meadow lark's evening song, but which repeats itself over and
over plaintively and sadly as the stately music swells to its crescendo
and dies with that unanswered cry of heartbreak echoing in the last
faint notes of the closing bar.

When it was finished, those who had ears heard and understood and those
who had not said, "Well," and waited for public opinion, unless they
were fools, in which case they said they would have preferred something
to whistle. But because the thing impressed itself upon hundreds of
hearts that hour, many in the congregation came forward to greet the
child.

Among these, was a tall, stately young woman in pure white with a rose
upon her hat so deeply red that it seemed guilty of a shame. But her
lips were as red as the red of the rose and her eyes glistened and her
face was wrought upon by a great storm in her heart. Behind her walked a
proud gentleman, a lordly gentleman who elbowed his way through the
throng as one who touches the unclean. The pale child stood by Grant
Adams as they came. Kenyon did not see the beautiful woman; the child's
eyes were upon the man. He knew the man; Lila had poured out her soul to
the boy about the man and in his child's heart he feared and abhorred
the man for he knew not what. The man and woman kept coming closer. They
were abreast as they stepped into the pulpit where the child stood. By
his own music, his soul had been stirred and riven and he was nervous
and excited. As the woman beside the man stretched out her arms, with
her face tense from some inner turmoil, the child saw only the proud man
beside her and shrank back with a wild cry and hid in his father's
breast. The eyes of Grant and Margaret met, but the child only cuddled
into the broad breast before him and wept, crying, "No--no--no--"

Then the proud man turned back, spurned but