d I will sing! Some day
all the world may stop to hear!

CHAPTER XIX

DIARY--THE FIRST LESSON

_September 20._

I HAD my first music lesson to-day. Mr. Lee called for me at the
boarding-house and took me down-town to the studio. After he left I
expected Mr. Krause to begin at once on the do, ra, me, fa, sol, la, si,
do. But he thought differently!

He sat facing me, looking at me till I felt like running. "And so," he
said quietly, "you want to learn to sing."

"Yes," was all I could say.

"Well, you have a voice. If you want to work like all great singers have
had to work you can be a singer. You may not set the world afire with
your fame but you'll be worth hearing. You are Pennsylvania Dutch?"

I nodded. What under the sun did Pennsylvania Dutch have to do with my
becoming a singer? I was provoked. I didn't come to the city and pay a
music teacher to ask me foolish questions.

"That is good," he went on calmly. "The Pennsylvania Dutch are not
afraid of work and that is what you need. The road to success in music
is like the road to success in any other thing, long and hard and
up-hill most of the way. Now that Pennsylvania Dutch is a funny
language. It is neither Dutch nor English nor German but is like hash, a
little of this and a little of that. Do you speak it?"

I said I have spoken it all my life but wished I had never been taught
it.

"Why?" he asked.

"Oh"--I couldn't quite veil my irritation--"it perverts our English."

"Nothing uncommon," he answered, smiling. "Every part of this great
country has some peculiarities of speech common to that particular
section and laughed at in the other sections. Now we will go on with the
lesson."

When he really did begin to teach I found him a wonder. I'm going to
enjoy, thoroughly enjoy, my music lessons.

Mr. Lee called for me after the lesson. I told him I could find the way
back to the boarding-house alone, but he said he'd consider it a
pleasure and privilege to call for me. He has the nicest manners! He
never needs to flounder around for the right thing to say, it just slips
from his tongue like butter. Aunt Maria always says, "look out for them
smooth apple-sass talkers," but I'm sure Mr. Lee is a gentleman and just
the right kind for a country girl to know.

When he called at the studio this morning I felt proud to walk away with
him. He suggested riding home but I told him I'd rath