The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1904-07-04

ana Gentle Nettie Moore and Nellie
Gray and I Dreamt I DweIt in Marble
Halls and he wound up with The Star
Spangled Banner. played with a head
Of steam on that made you think you
could hear the safety valve blowing OF,
on his b'iler down below.
well, the next morning. of course, 1
went over to see my old friend and have
a talk with him, and glad enough / was
to see him, and glad he was to see me.
He had been able to do Just what he
had always wanted to do, namely, to
have a private calliope Of his own.
when he quit the show business.
some five years before this he was COM
fortably fixed financially, and after
moving around more or less he had
settled down in this town and had in
stalled here ealliope. It wasn't so big
as the big one he played in the circus.
but it was big enough, and it was run
with steam from a b'iler set up in his
cellar. He wanted to play tune or
two on the ealliope for me right then
for old times sake; he said he hadn't
any steam on then, but the b'iler was
a quick steamer and he could get steam
on her in five minutes. but said no, I'd
wait till heard him play again at
night.
But looked the calliope over and in
tspected his boiler plant, and he was
pleased to have me do that. And that
night did hear him play agin.
when the key bugle man had got
through with his work and the futist
with his. and the brass horn man had
rolled a few avalanches of thunder
down upon the neighborhood. my old
friend the calliopist started up, and I
knew he was playing for me. He
played the old tunes he used to play
when he sat at the keyboard of the big
machine we carried in the procession,
and could see him again, as no doubt
he saw himself as he played, touching
the keys sharply as the calliope wagon
rolled along between wondering and
admiring multitudes,. with gallus
driver up in front, cracking the whip
over a team Of six prancing horses,
while the stoker shovelled coal into the
| furnace Of the boiler rising at the year.
He played the old tunes. all, and 1 ap-
preciated the compliment.
But i have never heard him since.
The next summer when / again visited
| the friend from whose veranda / had
thus so unexpectedly heard my old
friends calliope. I,listened for its notes
in vain; the key bugle was there, as be-
L fore. and so the flute, and likewise the
big bass horn; but the notes Of the
j calliope came not and then learned
that the calliopist had gone.
He had been, they told me a most
popular man in the town. Everybody
had liked the old circus man, but no
body could stand his calliope; and
4 finally he had been gently but firmly
driven away. 1t seems that he had
only a lease, a years lease, of that
house he was in where / saw him where
| he had his private calliope installed,
and when MS lease was up the owner
1 refused to rerent 1T; and every real es-
j tate man in town had refused either to
I lease or to sell him another house and
every owner OF land there refused to
house They liked him, but they
/ eoutuhJ stand tne calliopei ana the up
shot Of it all was that he had to move
away and where he had gone they
didn't know,
i And SO ! missed the calliope this
/ time, and / did miss it, for the calliope
4 r always liked; and couldn't see why
these people shouldn't like it as this
man played 1t, anyway. Whether ]
should like to hear a steam piano
played by an amateur would be some
thing I should have to think over a lit
tie; but I'd rather hear a calliope my
self any time, played as this man played
lit, than to hear the cornet the flute,
or the big bass horn, played as we hear
these instruments played by amateurs,
in city and suburbs, on moonlit SUM
mer nights York Sun.
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