THE CROWD AND THE SINGING 



little hand-press that some well-wisher had bequeathed 

 to the hospital. Next morning a subdued buzz of 

 delight would greet the distribution of the printed 

 sheets. Once, I remember, I was too busy to print 

 a new hymn, so I wrote the words on a blackboard 

 and hung it up in full view. The result was just 

 what I ought to have foreseen. When I went into 

 the room for the meeting everybody was whispering, 

 and all through the reading the whispering and 

 muttering went on in a subdued sort of way ; the 

 people were spelling through the new hymn. I 

 ought to have known that only a few of them 

 can read without making the words ; they need to 

 whisper or speak, or at least shape their lips to the 

 sound, before they get the meaning they have not 

 the faculty of seeing sounds as we can. There are 

 exceptions ; Jerry the organist and Juliana and 

 Benjamin, the school teachers, can read by thought 

 without any mouthing at all. But you can imagine 

 that roomful of people, eagerly spelling their way 

 through the words of the new hymn on the black- 

 board and paying not the least attention to anything 

 else. The new hymn absorbed them. 



I seldom found it necessary to play the tune over 

 more than once ; once they had heard it they sang 

 it with a swing, unless it were a melody more dull 

 and difficult than those to which most modern 

 hymns are set. 



There was a catastrophe at one of our nine o'clock 

 meetings, in which one of our little benches played 

 the leading part. When four good solid Eskimos 

 were seated on each of them, the benches were 

 well laden, and I used to feel some apprehension as 

 I watched the people edging closer and closer 



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