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.
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