I need hardly say that "Ortonville" became at once a favorite with our school. The new scholars were most apt to strike upon it, if they happened to be in a mood for singing, as they were busy at their winter's tasks--foddering the cattle and other stock at the barn, watering the horses, carrying in the wood for the evening and morning fires in the ample old-fashioned fireplaces, or doing any little chores about the house. The teacher was pretty sure to select it if the minister or influential members of the congregation came in to see how the school was getting along; as, somehow, they always seemed to be in better time and tune, and do more for the credit of the school, and the satisfaction of those who had raised the subscription, when they sang this, than in singing any other tune. Very soon it was sung everywhere, and those who could sing at all had learned it by rote, at least, as a necessity. The choir were not only better satisfied with themselves, but the minister seemed to preach with more animation, when "Ortonville" was sung upon the Sabbath, and prayer-meetings that were dull and uninteresting would take a new start when "Ortonville" was started. For not only all the new singers could sing, but all the old men and women who had been members of the choir when the country was first settled, and the hardy Puritan pioneers, in the absence of a minister, had what were called "deacon-meetings," the school-master, or whoever was regarded as the best reader in the settlement, reading a sermon. It was not long before it was found out that we were not alone in our admiration of the new favorite. In the adjoining towns, wherever the singing-schools were using the "Manhattan Collection," they had fallen upon this tune and were singing it just as we were. Before our singing-school closed I left home to pursue my academic, collegiate, and theological studies, and for a few years following, in connection with my residence at different places, and my travels in different Northern States, I again and again had opportunities of observing that in cities as well as in the country, in centers of intelligence and refinement as well as at my rural home, there was something in "Ortonville" calculated to interest nearly every class of mind, and make it, as soon as it was known in any place, a popular favorite. With these elements, and our national habit of never sparing our favorites, but pressing them into service for the time, _ad nauseam_, those who heard it once in any place were sure to hear it, to say the least, until they "had heard enough of it," and then it was consigned to comparative neglect.