Back Home

THE OLD RED SCHOOL-HOUSE

Oh, the little old red school-house on the hill,
(2d bass: On the hill.)
Oh, the little old red school-house on the hill,
(2d bass: On the hi-hi-hi-yull)
And my heart with joy o'erflows,
Like the dew-drop in the rose,*
Thinking of the old red SCHOOL-HOUSE I o-o-on the hill,
(2d tenor and 1st bass: The hill, the hill.)
THE MALE QUARTET'S COMPENDIUM.

* I call your attention to the chaste beauty of this line,
and the imperative necessity of the chord of the diminished
seventh for the word “rose.” Also “school-house” in the
last line must be very loud and staccato. Snap it off.

If the audience will kindly come forward and occupy the vacant seats in the front of the hall, the entertainment will now begin. The male quartet will first render an appropriate selection and then.... Can't you see them from where you are? Let me assist you in the visualization.

The first tenor, the gentleman on the extreme left, is a stocky little man, with a large chest and short legs conspicuously curving inward. He has plenty of white teeth, ash-blonde hair, and goes smooth-shaven for purely personal reasons. His round, dough-colored face will never look older (from a distance) than it did when he was nine. The flight of years adds only deeper creases in the multitude of fine wrinkles, and increasing difficulty in hoisting his tiny, patent-leather foot up on his plump knee.

The second tenor leans toward him in a way to make another man anxious about his watch, but the second tenor is as honest as the day. He is only “blending the voices.” He works in the bank. He is going to be married in June sometime. Don't look around right away, but she's the one in the pink shirt-waist, the second one from the aisle, the one... two... three... the sixth row back. See her? Say, they've got it bad, those two. What d' ye think? She goes down by the bank every day at noon, so as to walk up with him to luncheon. She lives across the street, and as soon as ever she has finished her luncheon, there she is, out on the front porch hallooing: “Oo-hoo!” How about that? And if he so much as looks at another girl—m-M!

The first bass is one of these fellows with a flutter in his voice. No, I don't mean a vibrato. It's a flutter, like a goat's tail. It is considered real operatic.