“I am now in my eighty-ninth year,” says Bandmaster Wiggin, “but I expect to lead my band on Memorial Day as I have for sixty-nine years.” HERBERT CLARKE Five-year-old Herbert Clarke stealthily crept up the attic stairs as he had done for days when his mother was busy. He quietly opened up the cases of wind instruments stored there. Not daring to take them out, he sat entranced as he examined each one separately. But his favorite play place was soon discovered. His father ordered him to stay out of the attic and then began to teach him violin. The boy progressed surprisingly fast, but the forbidden instruments were constantly in his mind. Herbert Lincoln Clarke, born September 12, 1867, in Woburn, Massachusetts, was the fourth of five sons of William Horatio and Eliza Tufts Richardson Clarke. His father, a celebrated organist and composer, disapproved of band musicians although he could play any kind of instrument made. He wanted his sons to learn and enjoy classical music and frequently roared at them, “Music is an art, not a profession!” But band music was Herbert’s heritage. He watched the torchlight processions of the political parties prior to the election of 1876, the fife and drum corps, and bands of all kinds marching and playing with hundreds of men, all bearing torches and wearing multi-colored capes. He would lie awake nights listening to bands playing in the distance, then fall asleep and dream that he was a man playing with them. After his brother Ed bought a cornet and joined a band Herbert’s band fever grew worse. On their first parade Herbert marched alongside Ed and announced to all they passed, “This is my brother playing the cornet.” When Herbert was twelve the family moved to Toronto, Canada, having previously lived in four different cities where Mr. Clarke had been called to play the church organ or take charge of school music. At first Herbert had to content himself with trailing bands and keeping his brothers’ instruments polished and their uniforms brushed and spotless. After he had heard Bowen R. Church, his first cornetist hero, Herbert again hopefully invaded the attic collection. He took out the old brass cornopean from its box and plastered it together with beeswax. Watching his chance to practice he found he could draw only wheezy noises from the dilapidated old horn, but he did learn to play some of the cornet scales. Finally one loud toot blew the old instrument apart. Regretfully, Herbert went back to his violin and with some of his schoolmates organized a little orchestra which did so well that they were soon playing at church sociables. Herbert’s music attracted so much attention that he was offered the second violinist chair with the Toronto Philharmonic Orchestra of some fifty players. Here the thirteen-year-old boy learned much good music.