“Now she’s coming, so get ready, fellows!” said Andy Bowles, referring to his programme.
There was a little wait. Ralph craned his neck, looking around to nod to a number of people he knew; but Rob really believed the other was thinking of Peleg more than anything else just then. To prove this he whispered:
“Don’t see anything of him, do you, Ralph?”
“That’s a fact,” came the ready reply; “he’s lost in the shuffle, for there’s a big mob back there, pushing to get inside the hall in time to hear Anna Burgoyne. I tell you she’s getting folks up in this neck of the woods excited a heap. But you just wait and see, that’s all.”
Then there broke out a wild hand-clapping and stamping of feet. Rob saw a demure little girl standing there, blushing and bowing as she faced the big audience.
“Why, she’s hardly more than a child!” gasped Tubby, as the noise gradually died away, with the singer standing there wholly at her ease.
“Well, she isn’t thirteen yet,” admitted Ralph, “which makes it all the more wonderful. Oh! she’s a nightingale, all right, believe me. I think she’s got the sweetest and strongest voice of any one I ever heard, and, let me tell you, I’ve been down to New York and attended more than a few first class concerts, too.”
Silence fell upon the crowd. Every eye was fastened on the demure little figure of Anna Burgoyne. Every one almost in that big hall had heard her sing time and again, but it seemed as though they could never get enough of her wonderful voice. Most of them believed like Ralph, that some fine day little Anna was bound to put Wyoming on the map through the marvelous voice Nature had given her. Already some of the rich men of the town had settled it among themselves that later on she must be sent to Europe, when the dreadful war was over, in order to have the highest artists of the Old World train her voice. Nothing was to be too good for Anna Burgoyne. Already they could in imagination see her charming the world of music lovers, and incidentally making the little Adirondack town of Wyoming known far and wide.
Rob understood that the child did have a most wonderful voice as soon as he heard her commence to sing. He, too, was thrilled with the purity of her tones as well as by their sweetness and power. Of course, he knew that she was almost wholly untrained, but in time, unless something happened to injure her vocal chords, she would very likely fulfill all the predictions of her admiring Wyoming friends.
A storm of applause followed the completion of her selection, in which all of the boys heartily joined. Then came another song, and still a third. It seemed as if the audience had gone crazy over that mite of a girl, and would insist on her complying with their demands until she could no longer sing a note.