“Yes, sir; the musicians haven’t any peace of their life for that boy’s prayin’. First thing in the morning he’s at it; noons he’s at it; and nights—well, _nights_ he just lays into ’em like all possessed! Sleep? Bless you, they _can’t_ sleep: he’s got the floor, as the sayin’ is, and then when he once gets his supplication-mill a-goin’, there just simply ain’t any let-up _to_ him. He starts in with the band-master, and he prays for him; next he takes the head bugler, and he prays for him; next the bass drum, and he scoops _him_ in; and so on, right straight through the band, givin’ them all a show, and takin’ that amount of interest in it which would make you think he thought he warn’t but a little while for this world, and believed he couldn’t be happy in heaven without he had a brass band along, and wanted to pick ’em out for himself, so he could depend on ’em to do up the national tunes in a style suitin’ to the place. Well, sir, heavin’ boots at him don’t have no effect; it’s dark in there; and, besides, he don’t pray fair, anyway, but kneels down behind the big drum; so it don’t make no difference if they _rain_ boots at him, _he_ don’t give a dern—warbles right along, same as if it was applause. They sing out, ‘Oh, dry up!’ ‘Give us a rest!’ ‘Shoot him!’ ‘Oh, take a walk!’ and all sorts of such things. But what of it? It don’t phaze him. _He_ don’t mind it.” After a pause: “Kind of a good little fool, too; gits up in the mornin’ and carts all that stock of boots back, and sorts ’em out and sets each man’s pair where they belong. And they’ve been throwed at him so much now, that he knows every boot in the band,—can sort ’em out with his eyes shut.” After another pause, which I forebore to interrupt,— “But the roughest thing about it is, that when he’s done prayin’,—when he ever _does_ get done,—he pipes up and begins to _sing_. Well, you know what a honey kind of a voice he’s got when he talks; you know how it would persuade a cast-iron dog to come down off of a doorstep and lick his hand. Now if you’ll take my word for it, sir, it ain’t a circumstance to his singin’! Flute music is harsh to that boy’s singin’. Oh, he just gurgles it out so soft and sweet and low, there in the dark, that it makes you think you are in heaven.” “What is there ‘rough’ about that?” “Ah, that’s just it, sir. You hear him sing “‘Just as I am—poor, wretched, blind,’ —just you hear him sing that, once, and see if you don’t melt all up and the water come into your eyes! I don’t care _what_ he sings, it goes plum straight home to you—it goes deep down to where you _live_—and it fetches you every time! Just you hear him sing:— “‘Child of sin and sorrow, filled with dismay, Wait not till to-morrow, yield thee to-day; Grieve not that love Which, from above’—