The Brookhaven leader., 1883-05-10
Our Concert.

There is one good thing about Sue, IL
she is girl; she is real charitable, and
is all the time getting people to give
money to missionaries and things. She
collected mornahundred dollars from
ever so many people last year, and sent
it to a society, and her name was in all
the papers as Miss Susan Brown" the
young lady that gave hundred dollars
to noble cause, and may others go and
do likewise.
About a motnh ago she began to get up
a concert for noble object, / forget
what the object was. for Sue didn't
make up her mind about it until a day
or two before the concert; but what
ever it was, it didn't get much money.
Sue was to sing in the concert, and
Mr.. Travers was to sing, and father was
to read something, and the Sunday
school was to sing, and the brass band
was to play lots of things. Mr.. Travers
was real good about it, and attended to
engaging the brass band, and getting
the tickets printed.
We've got a iirst-rate band. You
Just ought to hear it once. I'm going
to join it some day and play on the
drum; that is, if they don't find out
about the mistake / made with the
music.
When Mr.. Travers went to see the
leader of the band to settle what music
was to be played at the concert he let
me 90 with him. The man was awfully
polite, and he showed Mr.. Travers great
stacks of music for him to select from.
After while he proposed to goand see
a man somewheres who played in the
band, and they left me to wait until
they came back.
l had nothing to do, SO I looked at
the music. The notes were all made
with pen and ink, and pretty bad they
were. | should have been ashamed if |
had made them. just to prove that l
could have done it better than the man
who did do it, took pen an, ink and
tried it. made beautiful notes, and as
a great many of the pieces of music
weren't half full of notes, | Just filled in
the places where there weren't any
notes. / don't know how long Mr..
Travers and the leader of the band were
gone, but l was so busy that / did not
miss them, and when heard them COM
ing l sat up as quiet as possible, and
never said anything about what l had
done, because we never should praise
ourselves and seem to be proud of our
own work.
Now l solemnly say that never
meant to do any harm. All | meant to
do was to improve the music that the
man who wrote it had been too lazy to
finish. Why, in some of those pieces of
music there were places three or four
inches long without single note, and
you can't tell me that was right. But l
sometimes think there is no use in try
ing to help people as l tried to help our
brass band. People are never grateful,
and they always manage to blame
boy, no matter how good he is. shall
try, however, not to give way to these
feelings, but to keep on doing right no
matter what happens.
The next night we had the concert,
or at any rate we tried to have it. The
Town-hall was full of people, and Sue
said it did seem hard that so much
money as the people had paid to come
to the concert should all have to 90 to
charity when she really needed new
to begin with song by Sue, and the
band was to play just like piano
while she was singing. The song was
all about being so weary and longing so
hard to die, and Sue was singing it like
anything, when all of sudden the man
with big drum hit it most awful
bang, and nearly frightened everybody
to death.
People laughed out loud, and Sue
could hardly go on with her song. But
she took fresh start, and got along
pretty well till the big drum broke out
again, and the man hammered away
at it till the leader went and took his
drum-stick away from him. The peo-
pie just howled and yelled, and Sue
burst out crying and went right off the
stage and longed to die in real earnest.
When things got little bit quiet, and
the man who played the drum had
made il up with the leader, the band
began to play something on its own ac-
count 1t began all right, but it didn't
finish the way it meant to finish. First
one player and then another would
blow a loud note in the wrong place,
and the leader would hammer on his
music-stand, and the people would
laugh themselves most sick. After
while the band came to place where
the trombones seemed to get crazy, and
the leader just jumped up and Knocked
the trombone-player down with big
horn that he snatched from another
man. Then somebody hit the leader
with cornet and knocked him into the
big drum, and there was the awfulest
fight you ever saw till somebody turned
out the gas.
There wasn't any more concert that
night, and the people all got their
money back, and now Mr.. Travers and
the leader of the band have offered
reward for ''the person whom aliciously
altered the music"-that's what the
notice says. But l wasn't malicious,
and l do hope nobody will find out 1
did it, though l mean to tell father
about it as soon as he gets over having
his nose pretty near broke by trying to
interfere between the trombone-player
and the man with the French horn
Jimmy Brows,' ip Harper's Young
People.