In a fair analysis of the situation even the advantages of being deaf to music should be stated. I am not asked to listen while little Mary plays her piece on the piano. No one primes little Tommy to sing “Let me like a soldier fall” for my benefit. I am not required to render any opinion regarding the musical ability of those hopefuls. I am told that such musical criticism has developed some most remarkable liars, chiefly, I fancy, among the young men who are particularly interested in little Mary’s older sister. I am also informed that some of the singing to which you must listen is rather calculated to rouse the savage breast than to soothe it. Once I spent the night at a country house where, long after honest people should have been abed, a company of young men drove out from town to serenade the young lady daughter. I slept through it all, from “Stars of the Summer Night” to “Good Night, Ladies!” The father of the serenaded one was a very outspoken business man, whose word carried far, and he assured me that I was to be envied, for the “quartette of calves” kept him awake for hours. He wanted someone to give them more rope. “Why,” said this critical parent, “you should have heard these softheads sing ‘How Can I Bear to Leave Thee?’ I tried to make them understand that I could let them leave without turning a hair.” Hand organs beneath the window, German bands blowing wind, wandering minstrels of all kinds, may start waves of more or less harmonious sound afloat, so that my sensitive friends go about with fingers at their ears, while I have the pleasure of imagining that it is angel music. But at the end of all this satisfactory reasoning I shrug my shoulders and begin to figure what I would give if I could go back through the years to one of the old “sings” in my uncle’s kitchen. How I should like to bring back the night when the stranger from Boston sang “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” to that beautiful air from “Norma.” However, if I could have my choice tonight of all the music I have ever heard, I should go back to that lonely farmhouse beside the marsh. The neighbors have come over the hill for a Sunday night “sing.” No lamps are needed, for there is a fine blaze in the fireplace. There is snow outside, and creepy, crackling sounds from the frost are in the timbers; the moonlight sparkles over all. One of the girls sits at the little melodeon. I’d give—well, what _can_ a man give—to hear old Uncle Dwelly Baker sing “Rest for the Weary.” I can see him now sitting in the big rocking-chair by the window. How his bald head and his white whiskers shine in the moonlight! His eyes are shut, his spectacles have been pushed to the top of his head. He rocks and rocks, singing: “On the other side of Jordan, In the sweet fields of Eden, Where the tree of Life is blooming, There is rest for you.” And here we all come in on the chorus: