who
had a large, queerly shaped nose, when the teacher, seeing that the boy
was paying no attention to the lesson, darted to his seat and seized the
sketch. MacDowell was frightened and imagined he would be punished. But
the teacher was not a bit angry when he saw how true the lines were. He
asked to keep the paper and a few days later called on Mrs. MacDowell.
"Madam," he said, "I have shown the picture your son drew of me to an
artist of the School of Fine Arts, and this gentleman is so sure Edward
is meant for a portrait painter that he offers to pay all his expenses
for three years and to give him lessons free of charge." This was a
grand chance for a poor boy. Mrs. MacDowell did not want to make any
mistake. She looked at the teacher a minute and asked: "What would _you_
do?"

"Why, I am sure he will make a famous piano player."

There was the same old tiresome question: if Edward could do three or
four things well, how was any one to know which he might do best?

Finally the matter was left to Edward. After a good many days of
thinking, he decided his life should be given to music. Art was given
up, and Edward promised to waste no more time on his drawing. But he
was a great reader and liked good books to the end of his days.

After study of the piano in Paris, MacDowell went to Frankfort for two
years. He had many pupils there, and to one of them he was married.

The young married couple crossed the ocean and stayed in Boston long
enough for MacDowell to give some concerts. His fingers were like velvet
on the keys of the piano, and every one declared he must take part in a
grand American concert that was to be given during the Paris Exposition.
He did as he was asked, and the French people waved their handkerchiefs
and cried in their language: "Good for the little American!" The French
people invited him everywhere and begged him to remain in Paris, but
from first to last Edward MacDowell was a loyal American, and he
returned to Boston, where for eight years he played in concerts, took
pupils, and best of all wrote much of the music which makes Americans so
proud of him. He became a professor of music in Columbia College, and
his piano pieces were played the world over.

Many men who write music try to give it a style like some old Italian or
German composer, but MacDowell's music does not remind one of any
German, Italian, or French writers; it is just itself--it is MacDowell.
Some of his music is heavy a