Aaron Drucker, now Professor Drucker, with important degrees from both Columbia and Chicago universities, has become a highly-respected and most valuable citizen of America. Because of his keen interest and practical knowledge of the much-discussed subject of immigration his views have considerable weight. He is anxious that the great host of immigrants to America should receive a friendly welcome and should receive such information as will make it possible for them to get a good start in the land of their adoption. The college professor of fifty has not forgotten that at twenty-five he was a pupil in the kindergarten. CHAPTER XIV A POOR NEGRO BOY WHO THRILLED A KING One night, in the town of Erie, Pennsylvania, a poor negro boy stood, knee-deep in snow, outside the windows of a large house listening to a famous singer within. The name of the negro boy was Harry Burleigh. His mother was sometimes employed as extra help when a party was given in the big house, and she had told Harry that a great artist was to sing that evening, and although it was nearly zero and he shivered in the winter cold, the little fellow was so thrilled with the music that he forgot the biting wind and the frost. Harry’s grandfather had been a slave and partly as a result of the hardships he endured became blind, yet he laboured hard to support his family. Harry’s father died while he was a little fellow so he and his mother had to depend upon the old blind man for much of their support. For several years the grandfather was town-crier and the old blind negro often roamed the streets ringing his bell and announcing some news of general interest such as the hour of a funeral, or a meeting to be held. Newspapers only came once a week so the old negro filled a useful place in the town. The boy’s widowed mother was glad to earn a few cents whenever she could. She acted as janitress at a public school and often in the evenings helped servants in the big houses. Harry sold papers, ran errands, and did any odd chores he could find to do. Later he got work as a lamplighter. There was no gas or electricity in those days in the smaller towns and cities, and Harry got a job helping to keep the oil lamps clean and attending to them each evening. The negro boy attended school and while it was not like a modern school he learned to read and write and--what interested him more than anything else--he learned to sing. Poor, shabbily dressed, and often hungry though he was, Harry forgot all these things when the singing-lesson came around. He had a wonderful voice and soon the attention of his teacher was attracted. He gave the lad every encouragement and told him that some day he would be a great singer.