The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1872-07-26
STORY OLA ERAyE GIRL.
Her Poverty, StrwSg les, Pluck, and
Final Triumph.

Ell Perkins I'm New York Commercial Ad-
vertiser.
Last Saturday large crowd oi
friends with bouquets and smiles and
kind beneslictiOns thronged the steam
er City of Paris TO see eff young and
interesting lady. Many of the best
people in the metropolis took her hand
and bid her eGod-speed" across the
Atlantic, and success at Milan, Italy
whittier she goes to perfect herself in
music and the opera. She went with
the intention of returning to New
York after two years-perhabs prima
donna, perhaps another Jenny Lind
for none can conjecture what PrOvi-
dence has i'm store for the fair young
singer.
IL the writer did not always go to
nature, and did not found everything
he writes upon the basis of absolute
truth, you might, perhaps, doubt the
story which 1 now tell, and which
came to me from the lips of this same
young lady.
A POOR GIRLS STORY.
Miss Emma A. Abbott was born i'm
y
1854 her father, then a music teacher,
Illinois. The little child then took In
tense delight in music. She had dreams
of singing in public at the age of six.
When they read TO her stories of actors
and singers on the stage, she thought
the meant a coach, aud wondered,
with infautile fancy, how they could
throw bouquets into n stage.
From six to nine she sang about
home, catching every tune she heard
her father play, and, to the surprise of
everybody, began herself 10 play the
guitar. She became 80 proficient that
at the age of nine her father, a very
poor man, chained down with large
family of children, brought her out
with her brother George at a concert
i'm Peoria. Her debut took SO well
that her father, a man of restless
genius, but shiftIess and always unfOr-
tunate, decided to take little Emma on
a concert tour, which he did, keeping
her thus occasionally employed with
varied fortune until she was thirteen
years old. AT this age she went to
Mount Pulaski i'm company with some
Peoria children. While here they
wanted her to play her guitar and sing,
so she got up concert ION her own
hook" Though wearing short dresses,
she went to the Pulaski printing Office,
got out her own hand-bills, and then
went and posted them around town.
On one of these bills now before me it
says: g..r-
"Miss Abbott will sing Tine Merry
Swiss Girl chorus"
The little thing didn't know what a
chorus meant, but it looked nice, and
so she had them put it on the bill. She
drew quite a house, took i'm seven dol
lars, aud took it home to her mother.
After giving a concert at Lincoln, i'm a
schOol-house, sire came home again,
and gave guitar lessons TO pupils twice
rs old as she was at twenty cents per
lesson. She now went TO school, but
her father being too poor to pay her
tuition, the little child-woman bor-
rowed the money from friend-agree-
ing to pay it after she should become
a teacher.
At fifteen, little Emma succeeded i'm
securing a class of twenty poor chill
dren, who came 10 recite at her
mothers house. At the time she sang
i'm the Hebrew Synagogue-a kind old
rabbi, Marx Moses, teaching her to
pronounce i'm Hebrew and Germau.
The spring of her sixteenth birthday
found her father poorer than ever be
fore, and our little woman, to help her
mother, tried to secure a clerkship in
a s!crc, but failed. In great distress,
n. l. -....l Al,
Peoria. which was in need of a teacher.
Thither she went OH foot, through the
mud and slush. She found the princi-
l-al tiu,tee, kind old man, at dinner.
What do you want, my little wO-
mau?" asked the old farmer, as he
laid down his knife and fork to survey
our little heroine.
81 live i'm Peoria, sir, and / walk
ed
"What! walked, chiId?" interrupted
the cid man i'm astonishment.
ayes, sir, and 1 want to teach your
"WelI, / declare, my child, there are
fifteen applicants, hut you're a pretty
girl, and plucky rs julius Caesar. Have
you got your certiticate?"
"No, sir" faltered little Emma.
"Wcll, if you've walked nine miles
through this mud and slush, you'll do
to teach school for me. Sit up and
have some dinner"
Emma commenced the school the
next week, won the respect of the pa
rents and the love of the children, and
i'm four months took sixty dollars back
to her father i'm Peoria, where the large
family soon used it up.
Our heroine, with the assistance of
her father, now gave her first big con-
cert i'm Peoria. Quite a number of
amateurs assisted her, ROOse's Hall
was filled, the people cheered, and
Emma's father received one hundred
dollars. This was all used by her
father, mother and sister, except three
dollars. With this amount she left
her father strugi ling at home and
started for Rock Island to visit a young
lady friend. She found her friend alb
sent, and her money dwindled to
twenty cents. With this she went to
Moline for ten cents Ia call upon a
gentleman by the name of Deer, i'm
whose family her father had taught
twenty years before. Her idea
was TO get up concert. Mr.. Deer
was absent, and Mrs. Deer, a acrotchety-
faced old woman. was very cross. She
looked insinuatingly at Emma, and
said she didn't know what pretty
young girl wanted of her husband.
Just then Miss Abbott spied the piano,
and asked if she might play. In a
moment she was warbling a sweet
song. The old lady dropped her dishes,
wiped her hands ON her apron, and
came and looked over Eer glasses in
Just then Mr.. Deer
"By Jove, Matilda! That's darned
nice singing" he exclaimed; ,,who's
doin' it?r
"My name is Abbott" said our hero
inc, modesily. "My father used TO
teach in your family"
Thunder? yes-but what are you
doing here?"
well, Ia and ma are very poor, and
Ive come here 10 give a concert, and |
want you to help men
"An right. You're plucky girl,
and I'll help you. You shall have the
Congregational Church." said Mr..
Deer.
And she did have it. She got her
bills printed, went around personally
and announced the concert, up i'm the
schools, and the house was crowded.
She sang with her usual sweetness,
every heart. IL was a a'warm
night, her concert guitar was out of
tune, and the strings broke six times
during the evening. The audience