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chapel, and fell on their knees before the iron grating in the floor, said to cover the exact spot where St. Francis knelt when the seraph appeared.

When the descending sun warned us that we must soon be on our homeward way, Brother Samuel turned us over to a young monk, a handsome, fair-haired young man, athletic enough to have been a halfback on an American football team, and directed him to take us to La Penna.

La Penna, as its name implies, is the pinnacle of the rock on which the convent stands that is, the pinnacle of La Verna itself. We soon understood why Brother Samuel had resigned us to his young assistant. The path leads for about two miles through a growth of pines and beeches as wonderful in their

L

way as any of our New World forests, but the way is rocky and very precipitous, a trip not at all to the liking of easy-going, portly, wheezy Brother Samuel. Suddenly the trees ended and the rock rose bare before us. We climbed the remaining distance and came out on the top of the universe; or so it seemed, for the descent on the other side was a sheer seven hundred feet, and not so much as a branch or a twig to obscure the view. Below us were the valleys of the Arno and the Tiber, while beyond stretched the Casentino in undulating waves of green and blue and mauve away almost to Florence.

We felt that we had indeed reached the summit, not only of La Verna, but of our summer, though it was a day to be remembered even more for what we

had felt than for what we had seen. We had seen some ancient buildings and a group of kindly old men; we had felt we had been on holy ground. We had stood on the spot from which came the spark that had kindled mediaval Christendom into a vehement flame; for the pictures of St. Francis upholding a tottering church was not wholly from Giotto's imagination. If St. Francis had not done his work, would some one else have taken his place? The old question that no one can answer. But this we do know-St. Francis was "not disobedient unto the heavenly vision" that came to him on La Verna. He did do wonders in his own time, and his followers. not always in dust-colored robes, are still to be found in every part of the earth.

Conversations with Workmen

AST night it was the carpenter, calling to talk over when he could come to put on a new roof for her. In a minute-she couldn't tell how or when the change of topic was made he was telling her the story of Murtag'h MacDonald. He pronounced it with a guttural "gh" and man was "mon," and that was about all there was left of his Scotch brogue. Murtag'h was a great figure, a heroic figure in his life, although he had seen him but twice. He had his whole life pieced out, and this was what he said:

"THE

HE young men nowadays won't give their time to a trade; seems like there's too much studying out to it and they have to wait. The young men don't want to wait. They want to get on right off, no matter what they do.

I'd rather do a thing that has studying out to it and you can think and do it the best you know how and it's a thing that gives you something to take an interest in. When I was a boy, I was apprenticed out to a carpenter and I got seventy-five cents a week, and I worked good for it too. And I couldn't leave when I got tired or took a fancy. No, ma'am. Second year I got a dollar and a half, and I lived on that. Five year I was apprenticed. Same thing happened to Murtag'h MacDonald, I guess, but I never knew it till long afterward.

He was a queer chap. Very queer chap, Murtag'h was, but I liked him first rate first time I set eyes on him. You couldn't help but like him. He'd sit be

By BRIDGET DRYDEN II-The Carpenter

side you without ever saying one word. And you wondering all the time. First time I saw him I was working on a millionaire's house Long Island way. I hadn't been so long in this country then, either. That was 'way back. Well, when I came to the shop I saw there was a lot of us, plumbers and stone masons and all like of that, and we was all going out together. Country roads. And there warn't no trolley and the automobiles was scarce then. They told me get up in the pony cart. You'd call it a pony cart the way I think it was. Murtag'h, he was driving, and he was a big six-foot, black-hair chap. A young chap he was; I never see his beat for looks. You'd look at him a second time, them deep black eyes and his hair all wavy, waving, black and all waved natural, and thick, like 'twould swallow your hand, right back from his forehead and no cap. And that young face on him and not saying a word. And we druv along, and a team of horses they passed, meeting us. A fine team, finest I ever saw, and Murtag'h, he drew up. He pulled up the horse, and we stood there and he looked back at those horses. And he spoke: 'I want to look at those horses till I can't see them around the turn. We drove a pair like that where I lived when I was boy. Those are Clydesdales.'

"They were Clydesdales. That's what they were. I knew it, too. I came from nigh the same parts he came from, but I didn't know it then. he never said a word.

Neither did he,

Clydesdales are

horses the like of which you don't often see over here. It's the shaggy gray Norman, take it in these parts. But Clydesdales-they take your breath up into your throat to see them striding. Powerful. After a bit Murtag'h tells me he's from the Isle of Lewes, and his father kept a farm there, and there was twelve or fourteen of them, and not enough work for so many. He had nothing, and he set out. He was fourteen when he thought it out. He swam across the sea there, and I calculate it was about Oban he made the shore. That was a stiff swim-ten miles, as I think it might be. Well, he swam it, and there was some men laying rails. A new railroad, and he stepped up and asked to be put on. He looked eighteen, and they give it to him quick. They always give anything to Murtag'h when he asked it. His looks was for him. And whatever he did he did right. After he laid rails all he wanted, he worked on till he got to Glasgow, working his way. He wanted to get to Glasgow. And he got work straight off same day, a dock hand, carrying bales for a firm of packers, unloading ships. And they took him straight off. His looks was for him. He had strength and could carry what two men could, easy, too. Right opposite was John Laird & Son, cabinetmakers and doors and windows. He saw the workmen going in there day after day. with coat and collar on. He said that looks like a right good job, men wearing coat and collar day after day. And he looked in and studied it all out and liked

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the appearance of the work. And one day he told his boss that he was going to leave, and he had the money all saved. Two years it took him to save enough so he could leave, but he was bound he would do that there cabinetworking. That's all I knew till a year ago. I never knew how he came over here. But I knew he went to the Klondike with the first rush, and he went again. And whatever he did he did. good, better than everybody else. He got put into a book. A book about the Klondike. He says to me one day, 'George, if you ever go back to Glasgow, I wish you'd go to John Laird & Son and ask for Mr. Noble. And then you say, "Murtag'h MacDonald, he sent me." That's all you need to say.'

"I did that last summer. Only last summer it was, and I went to John Laird & Son and ask for Mr. Noble. Mr. Noble, he's still manager, and I told him I came from Murtag'h. 'Murtag'h is it?' he said, and he threw back his head and laughed. 'There was never another like Murtag'h,' he said. 'A queer chap, a very queer chap, but we liked him. Everybody liked him, and his looks spoke for him. He wore a look on him like a king walking, and no education and nothing behind him and never studied a book. You know, there's a lot of mathymatics and geometry in stair building. Figures, and there's other parts in a building that takes book learning. He studied it out in his head. What people do on paper he would do in his head and figure it out, not asking.' Mr. Noble told me how when he came to them, a boy, and he worked two weeks, and then they caught on that he was apprentice elsewhere, and the law was against them if they kept him. And Mr. Laird himself he called Mr. Noble, and they two called the foreman, and all three they said: 'How about this Murtag'h? We got to do with one same as with another. He's the best workman we have in what he's doing now. He's the best of them all, and if he stays with us there's no knowing how good he'll be.' And his character was good. And that's half there is to it. If the character is good, it's more than the work, and that's right. But he had both. They went to the other firm, and after a while they got it fixed, and he stayed where he was. He was hanging doors there, and when they came to foot up the doors they were one short. Two of them, he that kept the invoice and he that was overseer of the hanging in the job, they argued. And the one he said -there was one door short, ought to be one door more than he could count in stock. The other, he said there was all

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that came to him. So they argued and they fought, and they went out in the lumber yard and they were fighting. Murtag'h, he was a great lad, head and shoulders taller and bigger and the youngest there. He went out right betwixt them and took them apart and said, 'The both of you is right, and will you stop the fighting?' And the way he looked and said-they both stopped and got to laughing, and that was an end to it. And years after, before he took ship for America, he came and shook hands good-by and said: 'Here's the spot where you two stood a-fighting, and you're both here and friends to this day. You was both right, and I it was who took that door. I was hanging it, and I botched it and I spoiled the door. I was afraid I'd get the sack, and I knew, being young, I had no right to go ahead and hang that door, not waiting for the boss. So I took off the door I bungled and I chopped it up small and took up the floor where I was working and buried the pieces in the floor, and there it is now. I got a new door and

und put it on correct, and there weren't anything to show, and the boss said it was a fine, clean job!'

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"You

ou see, last year there was great trouble among the farmers and org fishermen in Lewes; what with weather and storm, they lost their crops and the catches weren't what they oughter be. I see in the papers that there's a committee in this country to take up subscriptions for them; maybe it wass all the Hebridee Islands, I don't know. And Murtagh MacDonald, he was chairman. Whatever he put his hand to it turned out right. Strong? You know what a 2 x 6 is. They come six and eight feet long. Generally takes two men handle Drea 2 x 6 stick of lumber. Murtag'h took two sawhorses that time I knew him as a youngster and he put six sticks like that, each one 2 x 6, across those two sawhorses and he stepped under and stood up, lifting the six pieces on his shoulder and carried them a great ways, it might be as far as here to Willow Street-two blocks. On that same job something else happened I call to mind. A man up on top of the scaffolding, it might be sixty feet high, and there was no way getting up or down only the braces, slanting. This man he fainted sudden-like, and Murtag'h saw him just before he began tottering. He was over to him quicker than you can think, and took him under his arm. With one hand left, he climbed down the braces, no steps or rungs, just swinging himself down on one hand, and he got to the ground and laid the man down, and we called a doctor. Murtag'h, he fainted."

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23

[graphic]

Rolls and Discs

[graphic]

By LAWRENCE JACOB ABBOTT

Phonograph Records

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1, IN B FLAT MINOR
(Tchaikovsky). Played by Mark Hambourg
and the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra, con-
In eight parts,
ducted by Sir Landon Ronald.
on four records. Victor.
There are few piano concertos played
to-day, but the quality of these few makes
up for their lack of quantity. Among the
very best of them is Tchaikovsky's B Flat
Minor. It is the last work of Tchaikovsky's
I should want to see destroyed.
tunately, the Hambourg-Ronald perform-
ance has allowed the inspiration and un-
alloyed beauty of the Concerto to shine

For

He Sees His Dentist, Often brightly. From its majestic opening brass

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notes and sweeping chords for the piano to
the close, it moves with power and nobility.
For this a large share of the credit must
go to the recording. In fact, I am inclined
to feel that this Concerto is the most as-
tounding feat that has ever been "pulled
off" on any records. Recording labora-
tories in the past seem to have accepted it
as axiomatic that either soloist or orches-
tra (or both) must be subdued to make
concerto recordings intelligible. This per-
The full
formance has done neither.
breadth and power of the concert piano
can be felt-both the thunder of the bass
and the glint of the high treble (as any
good piano recording should show). And
the orchestra is recorded with electrifying
volume. It is amazing how vividly both
parts keep in the foreground. It is possi-
ble to find fault with the piano tone at
times, especially in the middle register, or
to object to the confusing resonance, but
these are less consequential points than
that of keeping the work on a heroic scale.
Although Hambourg's playing at times has
a tendency to be hard and unfeeling, his

Forhan's for the gums performance as a whole emerges with fly

More Than a Tooth Paste. ... It Checks Pyorrhea

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ing colors; the interpretation is forceful
and eloquent.

Played

con

SYMPHONY NO. 7, IN A (Beethoven).
by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,
ducted by Felix Weingartner. In ten parts,
on five records. Columbia.
SYMPHONY NO. 8, IN F (Beethoven). Played by
the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted
by Felix Weingartner. In six parts, on three
records. Columbia.

If conducting could be classified, like
Greek architecture, into the groups Doric,
Ionic, and Corinthian, Weingartner would
have to be considered Doric. For even the
reservedly graceful Ionic is not stern
enough to include his handling of Beetho-
ven's Seventh and Eighth Symphonies.
This is not to be taken as necessarily fault-
finding, for there are distinct advantages
in having unromanticized versions of these
symphonies. Weingartner's trustworthy
performance of the Seventh leaves a clear
picture of the music itself; his sure attack
and nicety of reading are ideally suited to
the delightful Allegretto scherzando of the
Eighth. The start of the Vivace in the
first movement of the Seventh is dead and
duli, but soon freshens. Of the two sym-
phonies, the best played movement is the
second of the Seventh. An extraordinarily
fine string tone marks the announcement
of the main theme; its later appearance in
the form of a fugue brings from Wein-
gartner an exhilarating interpretation.
Throughout the two works clarity and bal-
ance are noticeably present. In the matter
of breaks between parts, Weingartner is to
be commended for one thing, though some
may call it freakish. That is his practice
of picking up the thread of a symphony
several measures before his last stopping
place a great help in establishing the
composer's continuity of musical thought.

But for what strange reason is the pitch boosted a fraction of a tone between the first and second parts of the Seventh? QUARTET IN F MINOR-Opus 95 (Beethoven).

Played by the Lener String Quartet of Budapest. In six parts, on three records. Columbia.

It is hard to choose between the Beethoven quartets. Far simpler merely to choose them all. The F Minor, admirably played by the Lener Quartet, is as fine as any. The musicians have shown great care in shading and detail. Their strings have a soft, velvety quality-especially the warm-toned 'cello. And the recording is all you could wish for.

TRIO IN B FLAT-Opus 97, for Violin, 'Cello, and Piano (Beethoven). Played by Sammons, Squire, and Murdoch. In ten parts, on five records. Columbia.

Although not as engaging on first hearing as some of Beethoven, there is much interesting and even daring treatment in this trio. The performance is spirited, yet in stretches is almost perfunctory-the pianist appearing to bear the brunt of the work of conveying the message, while the strings merely follow the notes. The recording, too, is not at its best. The piano is weak, as if off-stage, and the violin and 'cello lean toward harshness. RIENZI-OVERTURE (Wagner). In three parts. GÖTTERDAMMERUNG-Closing Scene (Wagner). Played by the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski. Victor. On two records. TANNHÄUSER-Overture (Wagner).

In three parts. DIE MEISTERSINGER-Dance of the Apprentices (Wagner). Played by Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Albert Coates. On two records. Victor.

A brilliant, swaggering performance of the "Rienzi." Stokowski's showmanship as a conductor justifies his meeting Coates on that Englishman's favorite recording ground. The "Götterdämmerung" music is an even finer performance. Stokowski has for the first time really swung into his stride as a recording artist. The power of the Philadelphia's strings can now be felt as they are felt in its concert performances. Coates's "Tannhäuser" is effective, but it cannot compare with the perfection of the performance Mengelberg extracts from his Concertgebouw Orchestra (Columbia)—that is, excepting Mengelberg's unfortunate change of tempo between parts one and two. The solemnity gained by a strangely slow opening tempo was a master stroke for the Dutch director. Coates is content with a more superficial brilliance. His "Dance of the Apprentices"conducted in his best style-is a delightful performance.

HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY NO. 2 (Liszt). Played
by Alfred Cortot. In two parts, Victor.
Cortot at his peak, in a performance that
makes one forget the hundred and one
mediocre band concert arrangements of the
rhapsody. The recording eclipses even the
Grainger piano recordings in faithfulness
of tone, and is their equal in range and
volume. Positively uncanny-the nearness
and accuracy of the piano tone.
SONG OF THE CHERUBIM (Glinka); CHURCH
SCENE FROM "CHRISTMAS EVE" (Rimsky
Korsakoff). Sung by the Russian Symphonic
Choir, conducted by Basile Kilbalchich. Vic-

tor.

Another of those fascinating Russian Choir records. In this one the depth of the bass voices is unbelievable. I cannot imagine why these are issued only in the foreign-language catalogues.

Mishel Piastro.

ZIGEUNERWEISEN (Sarasate). Played by
In two parts. Brunswick.
Gypsy airs, and therefore exotic melody.
played with gypsy fervor, Piastro has a

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