"A few years ago," said he, "I was over in one of the towns I make in Oregon. I reached there on Saturday evening. I went to my customer's store. Just before he closed he said to me: 'I'll take you to-night to hear some good music.'
"'Where is it?' said I. 'I'll be glad to go along.'
"'It's down the street a couple of blocks; it's a kind of garden. A family runs it. The old man serves drinks and the rest of the family— his wife and three daughters—play, to draw the crowd. I want you to hear the oldest girl play the violin.'
"Now, traveling men are ready any time to go anywhere. Sometimes they fly around the arc light, but they can buzz close and not get their wings scorched. They must keep their heads clear and they do, nowadays, you know. It's not as it was in the old days when the man who could tell the most yarns sold the most goods; the old fashioned traveling man is as much behind the times as a bobtailed street car. Well, of course, I told my friend Jerry that I'd go along. I should have put in my time working on new trade, but he was one of the best fellows in the world and one of my best friends. Yet he would not give me much of his business; we were too well acquainted.
"When we went to the garden—Jerry, his partner ner and myself—we sat up front. We could look over the crowd. It was a place for men only. The dozen tables were nearly all full, most of the seats being occupied by men from the mines—some of them wearing blue flannel shirts. But the crowd was orderly. The music made them so. The oldest daughter was only seventeen, but she looked twenty-three. She showed that she'd had enough experience in her life, though, to be gray. There was a tortured soul behind her music. Even when she played a ragtime tune she would repeat the same notes slowly and get a chord out of them that went straight to the heart. The men all bought rounds of drinks freely between the numbers, but they let them remain untasted; they drank, rather, the music.
"We listened for two hours. The music suited my mood. I was a long way from home. Most of the men there felt as I did. Twelve o'clock came, yet no one had left the garden. More had come. Many stood. All were waiting for the final number, which was the same every night, 'Home, Sweet Home.'
"There is something more enchanting about this air than any other in the world. Perhaps this is because it carries one back when he once has 'passed its portals' to his 'Childhood's Joyland—Little Girl and Boyland.' It reminds him of his own happy young days or else recalls the little ones at home at play with their toys. I know I thought of my own dear little tots when I heard the strain. How that girl did play the splendid old melody! I closed my eyes. The garden became a mountain stream, the tones of the violin its beautiful ripples— ripples which flowed right on even when the sound had ceased.
"'Home, Sweet Home!' I thought of mine. I thought of the girl's—a beer garden!
"'Boys,' said I to Jerry and his partner, 'I am going up to shake hands with that girl; I owe her a whole lot. She's a genius.' I went. And I thanked her, too, and told her how well she had played and how happy she had made me.
"'I'm glad somebody can be happy,' she answered, drooping her big, blue eyes.