the music to
them? We'll do it together!"

"But I can't," I replied. "I don't know how to do those things. You
write it. I'll help--maybe."

After a little urging--I think the fineness of the morning had as much
to do with it as anything--I took a piece of paper and after meditating
a while scribbled in the most tentative manner imaginable the first
verse and chorus of that song almost as it was published. I think one or
two lines were too long or didn't rhyme, but eventually either he or I
hammered them into shape, but before that I rather shamefacedly turned
them over to him, for somehow I was convinced that this work was not for
me and that I was rather loftily and cynically attempting what my good
brother would do in all faith and feeling.

He read it, insisted that it was fine and that I should do a second
verse, something with a story in it, a girl perhaps--a task which I
solemnly rejected.

"No, you put it in. It's yours. I'm through."

Some time later, disagreeing with the firm as to the conduct of the
magazine, I left--really was forced out--which raised a little feeling
on my part; not on his, I am sure, for I was very difficult to deal
with.

Time passed and I heard nothing. I had been able to succeed in a
somewhat different realm, that of the magazine contributor, and although
I thought a great deal of my brother I paid very little attention to him
or his affairs, being much more concerned with my own. One spring night,
however, the following year, as I was lying in my bed trying to sleep, I
heard a quartette of boys in the distance approaching along the street
in which I had my room. I could not make out the words at first but the
melody at once attracted my attention. It was plaintive and compelling.
I listened, attracted, satisfied that it was some new popular success
that had "caught on." As they drew near my window I heard the words "On
the Banks of the Wabash" most mellifluously harmonized.

I jumped up. They were my words! It was Paul's song! He had another
"hit" then--"On the Banks of the Wabash," and they were singing it in
the streets already! I leaned out of the window and listened as they
approached and passed on, their arms about each other's shoulders, the
whole song being sung in the still street, as it were, for my benefit.
The night was so warm, delicious. A full moon was overhead. I was young,
lonely, wistful. It brought back so much of my already spent youth that
I was ready to c