The Girl From His Town

  CHAPTER III--THE BLAIRTOWN SOLOIST

  Blairtown had a population of some eight thousand. There was aPresbyterian church to which Dan and his father went regularly, sittingin the bare pew when the winter's storms beat and rattled on the panes,or in the summer sunshine, when the flies thronged the window casings,when the smell of the pews and the panama fans and the hymn-books camestrong to them through the heat.

  One day there was a missionary sermon, and for the first time in itshistory a girl sang a solo in the First Presbyterian Church. Dan Blairheard it, looked up, and it made a mark in his life. A girl in a whitedress trimmed with blue gentians, white cotton gloves, and golden hair,was the soloist. He knew her, that is, he had a nodding acquaintancewith her. It was the girl at the drug store who sold soda-water, and hehad asked her some hundreds of times for a "vanilla or a chocolate," butit wasn't this vulgar memory that made the little boy listen. It was thegirl's voice. Standing back of the yellow-painted rail, above theminister's pulpit, above the flies, the red pews and the panama fans,she sang, and she sang into Dan Blair's soul. To speak more truly, she_made him a soul_ in that moment. She awakened the boy; his collar felttight, his cheeks grew hot. He felt his new boots, too, hard and heavy.She made him want to cry. These were the physical sensations--thematerial part of the awakening. The rest went on deeply inside of Dan.She broke his heart; then she healed it. She made him want to cry like agirl; then she wiped his tears.

  The little boy settled back and grew more comfortable and listened, andwhat she sang was,

  "From Greenland's icy mountains, From India's coral stra--ands."

  Before the hymn reached its end he was a calm boy again, and the hymntook up its pictures and became like an illustrated book of travels, andhe wanted to see those pea-green peaks of Greenland, to float upon theicebergs to them, and see the dawn break on the polar seas as theexplorers do.... He should find the North Pole some day! Then he wantedto go to an African jungle, where the tiger, "tiger shining bright,"should flash his stripes before his eyes! Dan would gather wreaths ofcoral from the stra--ands and give them to the girl with the yellow hair!When he and his father came out together from the church, Dan chose thestreet that passed the soda-fountain drug store and peeped in. It wasdark and cool, and behind the counter the drug clerk mixed the summerdrinks: and the drug clerk mixed them from that time ever afterward--forthe girl with the yellow hair never showed up in Blairtown again. Shewent away!