Mommy began with some of the songs we knew, and then she started telling the story. They were little songs by Robert Burns, and she told about his life and the country he lived in-Scotland. In Urbana, in 1948, our friend Dr. Gordon Ray had given her this idea. He gave Daddy and her a little party with some friends on January 25, Robert Burns's birthday, and his friends sang Burns's songs.

Later, Betty, Mommy's friend, heard about the idea and thought it would be good for all children to hear. She arranged for Mommy to give the program as a sample to the ladies of the Rotary Club at the Stafford Hotel, in May 1951. Later on, my Mommy thought about St. Paul's Day on January 25^th and remembered the musical evening at Dr. Ray's. When I left Mommy in November 1950, she didn't want to do anything, but, after a while, when she grew stronger, she was glad she had to get the program ready.

A new idea came to her: to have the parent talk it all over with the child and make it a little play and have poetry and music and all kinds of sound effects to make it very interesting. There were lots of clock sounds and a Chinese gong and a story about time and about poets and Shelley and the wind and Emerson and Christina Rossetti, and a wonderful big old music box from 1816.

First she went to a store on York Road and bought a recording machine. Then she took it everywhere to get the sound effects. She even went almost to the top of City Hall to get the sound of the tremendous Lord Baltimore bell, which has a very beautiful, rich, deep sound as it strikes the time in the tower of the building. Mr. Rose took her up there. He was a superintendent and was very kind to Mommy.

Mr. Pielert had a clock shop on Frederick Road with clocks from all over the world. He let Mommy and Dorothy Morgan, who played the part of me, get all the sounds and read the lines at the same time.

In his spare time, Dr. Pickering, a dentist, had a glee club, the Patapsco River Valley Squadron Glee Club, and he let Mommy record them singing "My Old Kentucky Home" and "Sweet Adeline." "Music When Soft Voices Die" by Shelley, the poet, was in the program too, and Mr. James Lewis, the director of the Handel Choir, played the piano for Mommy when she recorded it on the machine.

Mommy sang "La Vie En Rose" and "The Bluebird of Happiness," our favorite songs, with Dorothy on the taped program. When we saw "The Razor's Edge," a movie, we heard the music of "La Vie En Rose, " and we never forgot it because of what happened in the movie. When we went to see "Song of the South," we saw Uncle Remus, and I wanted to find my laughing-place because he said everybody has one and my Bluebird of Happiness; we saw it perched on Uncle Remus's shoulder while he sang "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah." Most of all, I wanted to find Uncle Remus and listen to his stories all the time. After that, whenever we saw a bluebird, I thought about Uncle Remus and laughing and happiness.

Mommy wanted to end each program with the best songs of all, "The Star Spangled Banner," to show how we love our country, and "The Lord's Prayer," to show how we love God. And that is the very best song. You see, that was when she wrote to Mr. John Charles Thomas and he gave her the scholarship to the music academy in Santa Barbara. It was the kindest deed he did for Mommy, and she would never forget it.

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