"Caprices." One evening
his father brought home some Italian musicians, and Ole Bull heard from
them all they knew of the great player, who was then turning the musical
world topsy-turvy with a fever of excitement. "I went to my grandmother.
'Dear grandmother,' I said, 'can't I get some of Paganini's music?'
'Don't tell any one,' said that dear old woman, 'but I will try and buy
a piece of his for you if you are a good child.' And she did try, and
I was wild when I got the Paganini music. How difficult it was, but oh,
how beautiful! That garden-house was my refuge. Maybe--I am not so sure
of it--the cats did not go quite so wild as some four years before. One
day--a memorable one--I went to a quartet party. The new leader of our
philharmonic was there, a very fine violinist, and he played for us a
concerto of Spohr's. I knew it, and was delighted with his reading of
it. We had porter to drink in another room, and we all drank it, but
before they had finished I went back to the music-room, and commenced
trying the Spohr. I was, I suppose, carried away with the music, forgot
myself, and they heard me.

"'This is impudence,' said the leader. 'And do you think, boy, that you
can play it?' 'Yes,' I said, quite honestly. I don't to this day see why
I should have told a story about it--do you? 'Now you shall play it,'
said somebody. 'Hear him! hear him!' cried my uncle and the rest of
them. I did try it, and played the allegro. All of them applauded save
the leader, who looked mad.

"'You think you can play anything, then?' asked the leader. He took a
caprice of Paganini's from a music stand. 'Now you try this,' he said,
in a rage. 'I will try it,' I said. 'All right; go ahead.'

"Now it just happened that this caprice was my favorite, as the cats
well knew. I could play it by memory, and I polished it off. When I did
that, they all shouted. The leader before had been so cross and savage,
I thought he would just rave now. But he did not say a word. He looked
very quiet and composed like. He took the other musicians aside, and I
saw that he was talking to them. Not long afterward this violinist left
Bergen. I never thought I would see him again. It was in 1840, when I
was traveling through Sweden on a concert tour, of a snowy day, that I
met a man in a sleigh. It was quite a picture: just near sunset, and
the northern lights were shooting in the sky; a man wrapped up in a
bear-skin a-tracking along the snow. As he drew up abr