Middletown transcript., 1908-04-04
THE LOST MELODEON
r.,,,,,,,-vn vpoM LAsT WEEK.
BY C. A. STEPHENS

Q0Ou IS udI vi OhoAUP
sichorean strains. But those !
Loggers contrived to dance to it:
Of the thirty men at this camp !
tWenty.four were French Cana
dians, and there were two among
them who could play it. They
played everything on it, including
jigs of quickest time and widest
movement.
Really, the pleasure those log,
gers took from it was worth the
price of the melodeon-although
it would have been hard to bring
the bereaved scholars in Num-
ber II to think so. We were
filed with anger, and found no
consolation. Master Pearsons'
too, was quite as inconsola ole'
He missed the melodeon sadly.
Worse even than the loss was
the sense of being completely
bafled as to who had taken it or
where it had gone. Several OF
us attempted to enact the role OF
detectives. We scrutinized that
brass jacket button, and even in
terviewed clothing dealers and
tailors at the three villages
nearest to US. We also sent two
of the older girls to make secret
inquiries over in Number 9 as to
all the jackets worn by the boys
there.
Butwe gained no clue. Newman
and Alfred kept quiet; and as no
one else knew anything about it,
there was nothing to leak out
The button was Alfred Battel-
lows, but as he lived in another
district and at a distance, ,and did
not wear that jacket afterwa rd,
suspicion never fell on him
There were numbers of false
clues. We heard of several mel
odeons being sold in other towns
round about; but on obtaining
particulars, they all proved diff
ferent from ours. The conclu-
sion finally settled on was that
some of the Number 9 boys had
taken the melodeon out of spite,
and buried it, burned it, or cut a
hole in the ice of the lake and
sunk it.
After a hilarious winter at the
lumber-camp, the melodeon mi
grated over the border. In the
latter part of March, when their
winters work was done, and the
Canadian leggers were ready to
return 10 their homes, a dis
cussion arose as to who
should have the instrument.
For they had regarded it as a
present to them. Six Of them
at last packed it on a hand-sled
and hauled itaway to a little set
lement, called Black Lake, in
the Province of Quebec, thirty
or forty miles above the boun'
dairy.
At Black Lake, or else in the
neighboring hamlet of Garth
by, there was a public school,
then recently established under
the Dominion school system.
where the children received
instructions in French. Th
school was in charge of a young
lady from Sorel, named Marie
Ladoucier, who had some prof
cheney in music.
Several of the lumbermen
were admirers of Mademoiselle
Ladoucier, and it came about ere
long that our lost melodeon was
installed at this little French
schoolhouse, where for three
months it gave unbounded salts
faction, morning, noon and night
as well as at evening meetings ot
the French people. They knew
nothing of it's previous history
and mad no idea but that it was
honestly come by.
Not till August did so much
as a lisp reach US as to its where
abouts. French Canadians al
this time had begun to come
down over the border, to worl
not only at lumber camps, bu
on farms. In July that summer
one of these same young mel
from Black Lake called at ouI
place, looking for a job during
the haying season. We hire'
him, and he was with US fou
weeks. His name was Benoi
Lecharme.
He could speak little English
and as the melodeon was the sub
iect of occasional conversation
he heard of it. 1t was recalle'
afterward that he asked a grea
many questions about it-how
looked, where it was bought
what makers name was on tn
front of il. and SO forth. Prol