old Juanita, and Roll on, Silver Moon, were some of their
favorite songs, Still a "goat," and always a "goat," I am not capable of
describing music; but school and visitors sat enchanted when Helen and
Bear-Tone sang.

Helen's parents were opposed to having their daughter become a
professional singer. They were willing that she should sing in church
and at funerals, but not in opera. For a long time Bear-Tone labored to
convince them that a voice like Helen's has a divine mission in the
world, to please, to touch and to ennoble the hearts of the people.

At last he induced them to let him take Helen to Portland, in order that
a well-known teacher there might hear her sing and give an opinion.
Bear-Tone was to pay the expenses of the trip himself.

The city teacher was enthusiastic over the girl and urged that she be
given opportunity for further study; but in view of the opposition at
home that was not easily managed. But Bear-Tone would not be denied. He
sacrificed the scanty earnings of a whole winter's round of singing
schools in country school districts to send her to the city for a course
of lessons.

The next year the question of her studying abroad came up. If Helen were
to make the most of her voice, she must have it trained by masters in
Italy and Paris. Her parents were unwilling to assist her to cross the
ocean.

Bear-Tone was a poor man; his singing schools never brought him more
than a few hundred dollars a year. He owned a little house in a
neighboring village, where he kept "bachelor's hall"; he had a piano, a
cabinet organ, a bugle, a guitar and several other musical instruments,
including one fairly valuable old violin from which he was wont of an
evening to produce wonderfully sweet, sad strains.

No one except the officials of the local savings bank knew how Bear-Tone
raised the money for Helen Thomas's first trip abroad, but he did it.
Long afterwards people learned that he had mortgaged everything he
possessed, even the old violin, in order to provide the necessary money.

Helen went to Europe and studied for two years. She made her debut at
Milan, sang in several of the great cities on the Continent, and at
last, with a reputation as a great singer fully established, returned
home four years later to sing in New York.

Bear-Tone meanwhile was teaching his singing schools, as usual, in the
rural districts of Maine. Once or twice during those two years of study
he had managed to send a litt