Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1872-07-19
Farm and FzreS1ae.
sTORI.OF u GOOD BR.sv'B GIRL.

STOh y Or - GOOD hhsEt'h GEhL.
A short time since, a large crowd of
friends with bouquets and smiles and kind
benedictions, thronged the steamer City of
Paris, to see off young and interesting Ia
dy. Many of the best people in the me-
tropolis took her hand and bade her "God
speed across the Atlantic and success at
Milan, Italy, whether she goes to perfect
herself in music and the opera. She went
with the intention of returning to New
York after two years-perhaps prima
donna-perhaps another Jenny Lind, for
none can conjecture what Providence has
in store for the fair young singer.
If 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 came 10 me
from the lips of the same young lady.
Miss Emma A. Abbot was born in Chi
cago, about twenty years ago. In 1854 her
father, then music teacher, took her to
the little village of Peoria, in Illinois. The
| title child then took intense delight in mu-
sic. 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 they
meant a coach, and wondered, with inlan-
tile fancy, how they could throw bouquets
into stage.
From six TO nine, she sang at home
catching every tune she heard her father
play, and 10 the surprise of everybody, be-
gan herselft TO play the guitar. She became
so proficient that at the age of nine her
father, a very poor man, chained down
with large family, brought her out with
her brother George ut a concert in Peoria.
Her debut took 50 well that her father, a
man of restless genius, but shiflless and
always unfortunate, decided to take little
Emma on a concert tour, which he did,
keeping her thus occasionally employ ed
with varied fortune, until she was thirteen
years old.
At this age she went to Mount Pulaski
in company with some Peoria children.
While there they wanted her to play her
guitar and sing, so she got up concert
son her own hook" Though wearing
short dresses, she went to the Pulaski
printing office, got out her own handbills,
town. On one of these bills now before me
1t says:
"Miss Abbot will sing THE Merry Swiss
Girl chorus.
The little thing didn't know what cho-
rus meant, but it looked nice, and 50 she
had them put it ON the bill. She drew
quite a house, took in seven dollars, and
took it home to her mother. After giving
a concert in Lincoln, in schoolhouse, she
then came home again, and gave guitar
lessons to pupils twice as 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 Dor
rowed the money from friend-agreeing
to pay it after she should become teacher.
At fifteen, little Emma succeeded in se-
curing a class Of twenty poor children, who
came 10 recite at her mothers house. Al
that time, she sang in the Hebrew syna-
gogue-a kind old rabbi, Marx Moses
teaching her to pronounce in Hebrew and
German.
The spring of her sixteenth birthday
found her father poorer than ever before,
and our little woman, to help her mother
tried to secure a clerkship in a store, but
failed. In great distress, she heard of q
school nine miles from Peoria, which was
in need of teacher. Thther she went on
foot, through the mud and slush. She
found the principal trustee, a kind ole
man, at dinner.
"What do you want, my little woman
ask ed the old farmer, as he laid down hi
knife and fork to survey our little heroine
81 live in Peoria, sir, and walked"
"What walked, child9" interrupted
the old man, in establishment.
ayes, sir, and l want to teach you
school,"
"Well, l declare, my child, there are fiji
teen applicants, but you're pretty girl
and plucky as Julius Caesar. Have yo
got your certificate9"
''No, sir" faltered little Emma.
swell, if you've walked nine mile
through this mud and slush, you'll do I
teach school for me. Sit up and have som
dinner
Emma commenced the school the mex
week--won the respect of the parents an
the love of the children, and in four month
took sixty dollars back to her father /
Peoria, where the large family soon use
il up.
Our heroine, with the assistance of hi
father, now gave her first great concert
Peoria. Quite a number of amateurs a
sisted her. Rosse's Hall was filled, the PEE
pie cheered, and Emma's father. receive
one hundred dollars. This was all used
her father, mother, and sister, except thr'
dollars. With this amount she left HI
father struggling at home, and started f
Rock Island, to visit young lady frien
She found her friend absent, and her MOI
ey dwindled to twenty cents. With tn
she went TO Moline for ten cents to call NJ
on a gentleman by the name of Deer,
whose family her father had taught mus