St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls | Page 4

no money for
the new organ. They have a young Italian, who sings like an angel,
there; and the young archduchess is an Italian, and is wild about music,
and lavishes her gifts wherever she finds it good."
Magdalis looked perplexed and troubled.
"To sell the child's voice seems like selling part of himself, neighbor,"
she said at length; "and to sell God's praises seems like selling one's
own soul."
"Well, well! Those are thy proud burgher notions," said Hans, a little
nettled. "If the Heavenly Father pleases to give thee and the little ones a
few crumbs for singing His matins and evensong, it is no more than He
does for the robins, or, for that matter, for the very ravens, such as me,
that croak to Him with the best voice they have."
At these words, Gottlieb, who had been listening very attentively,
gently set little Lenichen down, and, drawing close to Hans, put his
little hand confidingly in his.
"I will go with neighbor Hans, mother!" he said, decisively. "The dear
Lord himself has sent him."
"Thou speakest like a prophet," said the mother, smiling tenderly at his
oracular manner, "a prophet and a king in one. Hast thou had a vision?
Is thy will indeed the law of the land?"

"Yes, mother," he said, coloring, "the dear Lord Jesus has made it quite
plain. I asked Him, if we were not good enough for Him to send us an
angel, to send us one of His ravens, and He has sent us Hans!"
Hans laughed, but not the grim, hoarse laugh which was habitual to him,
and which people compared to the croaking of a raven; it was a hearty,
open laugh, like a child's, and he said:
"Let God's raven lead thee, then, my lad, and the mother shall see if we
don't bring back the bread and meat."
"I did not ask for meat," said Gottlieb, gravely, "only for bread."
"The good God is wont to give more than we either desire or deserve,"
croaked Hans, "when He sets about giving at all."
II.
There was no time to be lost.
The services of the day would soon begin, and Hans had set his heart
on Gottlieb's singing that very day in the cathedral.
The choir-master's eyes sparkled as he listened to the boy; but he was
an austere man, and would not utter a word to make the child think
himself of value.
"Not bad raw material," he said, "but very raw. I suppose thou hast
never before sung a note to any one who understood music?"
"Only for the mother and the little sister," the child replied in a low,
humbled tone, beginning to fear the raven would bring no bread after
all, "and sometimes in the litanies and the processions."
"Sing no more for babes and nurses, and still less among the beggars in
the street-processions," pronounced the master, severely. "It strains and
vulgarizes the tone. And, with training, I don't know but that, after all,
we might make something of thee--in time, in time."

Gottlieb's anxiety mastered his timidity, and he ventured to say:
"Gracious lord! if it is a long time, how can we all wait? I thought it
would be to-day! The mother wants the bread to-day."
Something in the child's earnest face touched the master, and he said,
more gently:
"I did not say you might not begin to-day. You must begin this hour,
this moment. Too much time has been lost already."
And at once he set about the first lesson, scolding and growling about
the child setting his teeth like a dog, and mincing his words like a fine
lady, till poor Gottlieb's hopes more than once sank very low.
But, at the end of a quarter of an hour's practice, the artist in the
choir-master entirely overcame the diplomatist.
He behaved like a madman. He took the child in his arms and hugged
him, like a friendly bear; he set him on the table and made him sing one
phrase again and again, walking round and round him, and rubbing his
hands and laughing with delight; and, finally, he seized him and bore
him in triumph to the kitchen, and said to his housekeeper:
"Ursula, bring out the finest goose and the best preserves and puddings
you have. We must feast the whole choir, and, may be, the dean and
chapter. The archduke and the young archduchess will be here at Easter.
But we shall be ready for them. Those beggarly Cistercians haven't a
chance. The lad has the voice of an angel, and the ear--the ear--well, an
ear as good as my own."
"The child may well have the voice of an angel," scolded old Ursula;
"he is like to be among the angels soon