A Singer's Story
and the accompaniment of a few regular chords below them. Ridiculous as it may seem to you, I had never seen anything like that. Of course I had read of songs and of people who sung, but I always thought of it vaguely as a kind of recitation to music—a story told somewhat differently. So I tried to play the air and say the words. It was not a great success. I hummed the tune through, and then, by a sort of instinct, hummed the words softly. It gave me a queer little feeling of pleasure. I sang the verse again and then the others, growing very excited all the time. It never occurred to me to sing in any but the softest conversational voice—it would have annoyed Aunt Sarah. As it was, she soon told me to stop, and a headache prevented my playing for a day or two. But I did not care. I took the precious book home, and sang all the ballads through that night. Once when my voice rose above a soft humming, Uncle Ezra irritably called up to me to be still, and fearful of losing my new joy, I fled to the attic with a candle and hummed happily till very late. The
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