entre of Middle
Bethany--the singing-school. Of course, she couldn't start a
singing-school at Bottle Flat, but if she were to say the children
needed to be led in singing, would it be very hypocritical? She might
invite such of the miners as were musically inclined to lead the school
in singing in the morning, and thus she might, perhaps, remove some of
the prejudice which, she had been informed, existed against the school.

She broached the subject to Toledo, and that faithful official had
nearly every miner in camp at the schoolhouse that same evening. The
judge brought a fiddle, Uncle Hans came with a cornet, and Yellow Pete
came grinning in with his darling banjo.

There was a little disappointment all around when the boys declared
their ignorance of "Greenville" and "Bonny Doon," which airs Miss Brown
decided were most easy for the children to begin with; but when it was
ascertained that the former was the air to "Saw My Leg Off," and the
latter was identical with the "Three Black Crows," all friction was
removed, and the melodious howling attracted the few remaining boys at
the saloon, and brought them up in a body, led by the barkeeper himself.

The exact connection between melody and adoration is yet an unsolved
religio-psychological problem. But we all know that everywhere in the
habitable globe the two intermingle, and stimulate each other, whether
the adoration be offered to heavenly or earthly objects. And so it came
to pass that, at the Bottle Flat singing-school, the boys looked
straight at the teacher while they raised their tuneful voices; that
they came ridiculously early, so as to get front seats; and that they
purposely sung out of tune, once in a while, so as to be personally
addressed by the teacher.

And she--pure, modest, prudent, and refined--saw it all, and enjoyed it
intensely. Of course, it could never go any further, for though there
was in Middle Bethany no moneyed aristocracy, the best families scorned
alliances with any who were undegenerate, and would not be unequally
yoked with those who drank, swore, and gambled--let alone the fearful
suspicion of murder, which Miss Brown's imagination affixed to every man
at the Flat.

But the boys themselves--considering the unspeakable contempt which had
been manifested in the camp for the profession of teaching, and for all
who practiced it--the boys exhibited a condescension truly Christian.
They vied with each other in manifesting it, and th