When Giuseppe was seven years old his father, though only a poor innkeeper, bought him a spinet, a sort of small piano. So faithfully did the little boy practise that the spinet was soon quite worn out and new jacks, or hammers, had to be made for it. This was done by Stephen Cavaletti, who wrote a message on one of the jacks telling that he made them anew and covered them with leather, and fixed the pedal, doing all for nothing, because the little boy, Giuseppe Verdi, showed such willingness to practise and to learn. Thus the good Stephen thought this was pay enough. Here is a picture of the little piano. In Verdi's language (Italian) it is called a spinetta. [Illustration: No. 3 VERDI'S SPINET] It was on this spinet that the little boy discovered one day a wonderful chord, for so it seemed to him. It was this: [Illustration: No. 4] The tones delighted him and he pressed the keys over and over again to drink them in. But the next day when he sought again the keys which made the lovely sound, he could not find them. This made him so impatient and finally so curious that he began to break the spinet to pieces with a hammer. Fortunately the noise he made brought his father into the room and the spinet was saved. When Giuseppe was making his first attempt to find beautiful chords on the spinet he was, as we have said, seven years old. That was in 1820. When he was ten years old (what year was that?) Giuseppe became organist at the old church of Roncole. Truly a little boy for so great a position! One day he scratched his name on the woodwork. Here is a picture of the organ: [Illustration: No. 5 ORGAN AT RONCOLE] Here is the scratching of his name: [Illustration: No. 6] And here is the way he wrote his name, as a man: [Illustration: No. 7] Then there came the question of education--of reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic--for this music-loving boy. The Verdis wanted Giuseppe to grow up as he should; so it was arranged for him to go to school in the neighboring town of Busseto. A cobbler lived there who was a friend of the family, and with him Giuseppe went to live, having board, lodging and tuition at the school, and all for six cents a day. Giuseppe still played the organ at Roncole, going thither afoot every Sunday morning and back after nightfall. He must have been a weary little boy after the day's music-making at the church. One Sunday night when it was dark and he was too weary to notice where he was going, he fell into a ditch, from which he was rescued by an old woman, who, hearing his call for help, pulled the half-frozen boy out of the water.