"Do you know, a touching, yet a happy thing, happened this morning down in Missoula?
"I was standing in my customer's store taking sizes on his stock. I heard the notes of a concertina and soon, going to the front door, I saw a young girl singing in the street. In the street a good looking woman was pulling the bellows of the instrument. Beside her stood two girls—one of ten, another of about fourteen. They took turns at singing—sometimes in the same song.
"All three wore neat black clothes—not a spark of color about them except the sparkling keys of the concertina. They were not common looking, poorly clad, dirty street musicians. They were refined, even beautiful. The little group looked strangely out of place. I said to myself: 'How have these people come to this?'
"How those two girls could sing! Their voices were sweet and full. I quit my business, and a little bunch of us—two more of the boys on the road having joined me—stood on the sidewalk.
"The little girl sang this song," continued my companion, reading from a little printed slip:
"Dark and drear the world has grown as I wan-der
all a-lone,
And I hear the breezes sob-bing thro' the pines.
I can scarce hold back my tears, when the southern
moon ap-pears,
For 'tis our humble cottage where it shines;
Once again we seem to sit, when the eve-ning lamps
are lit,
With our faces turned to-ward the golden west,
When I prayed that you and I ne'er would have to
say 'Good-bye,'
But that still to-gether we'd be laid to rest.
"As she sang, a lump kind of crawled up in my throat. None of us spoke.
"She finished this verse and went into the crowd to sell printed copies of their songs, leaving her older sister to take up the chorus. And I'll tell you, it made me feel that my lot was not hard when I saw one of those sweet, modest little girls passing around a cup, her mother playing in the dusty street, and her sister singing,—to just any one that would listen.
"The chorus was too much for me. I bought the songs. Here it is: