Short stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
Remain to be considered the opening and closing exercises, principally
devoted, I remember, to learning new tunes and singing old ones out of
books with pretty titles, like “Golden Censer,” “Silver Spray,” “Pearl
and Gold,” “Sparkling Dewdrops,” and “Sabbath Chimes.” I wasn't going to
tell it, but I might as well, I suppose. I can remember as far back as
“Musical Leaves.” There must be quite a lot of people scattered about
the country who sung out of that when they were little. I wish a few of
us old 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!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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