Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/868

 848 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

It always interested me to note the choice of the boys in the matter of songs. The popular street song of the day has its vogue, of course, and passes ; but in our club, there were certain established favorites which were demanded every evening, and never failed to evoke a roof-lifting chorus, that stopped the passers on the sidewalk and made them look inquiringly into our uncurtained windows. One of these was "A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight." At the first sound of

When you hear those bells go ting-a-ling, All join hands and sweetly we will sing,

the last boy would come running from the farthest corner, crowding his marbles into his pockets as he ran, to join in the favorite chorus. But the song of songs in our club has ever been that lugubrious ditty "The Drummer-Boy's Farewell." If there ever was a time when anxious spectators really feared that the delicate little girl on the piano stool would be crushed between the mass of crowding boys and the front of the instru- ment, when the inexperienced cast doubtful looks at the cornice and the windows, it was when every voice was lifted in the chorus :

O break the news to mother ; she knows how dear I love her ;

And kiss her dear, sweet face for me

For I'm not coming home.

The never-failing popularity of this song could only have been on account of the sentiment it expressed. The music was of the wailing, dragging kind particularly abhorred by the boys. It must have been the picture evoked of a boy, wounded, lying on the ground, at night, after the great battle ; lonely, suffering, and longing for his mother. Of course, nothing would have induced the smallest boy to acknowledge this interest ; and if any bystander had been so ill-advised as to seek to improve the occasion by appealing to such sentiment as the song suggested, he would, in all probability, have been greeted by a howl of derision and a request to "come off." I would not have the prospective leader of the boys' club draw the conclusion from this paper that the work is easy, or that appreciable results will quickly follow. You will, dear worker, be an object of deep