The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1923-11-15
Music Bar to
Child's Happiness
When Young Hopefuls Have
to Stare Lessons on Violin
Sadness Enters Life.

You hear people burble about the
unalloyed happiness of being a
child, and sigh, and wish that they
had no more trials and tribulations
than the trifiing ones that come to
their youthful sons and daughters.
Then, as like as not, they get up
and peer through the living room
door into the parlor and say:
Charles You haven't practiced q
note since Mrs. Andrews came in. You
pick up that mandolin and begin.''
One noon Jack Middleton. a strapping
twelve-year-old football player, came
home after he had had a fight with %
friend and knocked him through fence
into a pond and was greeted at the din
ner table with this remark from his
father John, your mother and L
have bought you a violin!"
"A-a vi'lin oh my gosh, what d!1
you go and do that for?"
80 that you can learn to play it,
John. Your mother and / want you 20
have advantages that we were unable to
have. You will find that life is great
deal happier when you know music ami
love it,
Happier Happier saving on
fiddle when II ought to be out gettin4;
exercise or something Pa, how much
did you pay for that fiddler
1T is q very fine violin. / paid
$3.50 for it."
Seventeen dollars and half Twelve
baseballs and four sodas %
His Education Starts.
That afternoon, dripping with the
perspiration of excruciating embarrass-
ment, John rang the doorbell of the
professor of music.
what in the name of time" said tho
professor of music, taking out John
violin, have you been using this instru-
ment for, tennis racquet"
MACK Johnson yelled at me to play
him love song and laid it down and
chased him up on his front stoop and
socl1ed him for row of milkyways."
How do you lay down a love song?'
asked the professor. "But never mini.
I am a human being and / know Il e
way you are suffering to-day and have
got tc suffer in the future. and l am
sorry for you and will continue to be
sorry for you unless l discover that you
can't understand when you are playing
out of tune. However, you have no idea
what l am talking about Here, take
what is left of this violin and turn that
crank there until the string makes the
same sound as this note l am playing
career has started =
John suffered cruel, cutting agony for
the next fifteen minutes, after which
the professor sat down in a chair and
swabbed his forehead and said II knew
it l felt in in my bones that you were
about due. My new pupils have been
unsteady sympathetic for a month now
and l knew it was time for something
like you to happen to me. Shades of q
r
to G sharp sounds just like B natural
to you. Oh, what haveeI done to de-
serve such a punishment as this?
Take the instrument and hold ii
under your chin--thus-and draw the
bow gently-gently-a at right
angles over the open strings, like that.
1 have got to earn what your father
is going to pay me-
Suffering Increases.
Then the poor boy suffered for what
seemed to be hours upon hours in a way
that cannot be told in written words.
There is something about the mourning
wall of a violin played close to the ear
of boy which blackens the mood Of
that boy as death news will blacken
the mood of 'grownup.
The professor threw himself at last
into his chair and cried, go Go!
There is fifteen minutes left, but this
is too awful can't stand it-Go! For
the sake of my health we must start
in on this at easy stages"
John went out into the night. A sad
moon was shining through the trees.
An owl hooted through the darkness
and three boys arose from horse
block across the street and chanted,
play us a love song, Johnnie, dearI
Play us a love song, Johnnie, dear "
my gosh, my gosh ~ moaned john
ME, dear, leaning on the gate post and
looking forward into the agonies of life.
1T wish was dead and gone and
planted in the cemetery. A corpse must
be the happiest person in the world"