The parents were quite willing and as for little Sepperl, he was simply overjoyed, for he longed to learn more about the beautiful music which filled his soul.  He went with his new cousin, as he called Frankh, without any hesitation, and with the expectation that his childish day dreams were to be realized.

A new world indeed opened to the six year old boy, but it was not all beautiful.  Frankh was a careful and strict teacher; Josef not only was taught to sing well, but learned much about various instruments.  He had school lessons also.  But his life in other ways was hard and cheerless.  The wife of his cousin treated him with the utmost indifference, never looking after his clothing or his well being in any way.  After a time his destitute and neglected appearance was a source of misery to the refined, sensitive boy, but he tried to realize that present conditions could not last forever, and he bravely endeavored to make the best of them.  Meanwhile the training of his voice was well advanced and when not in school he could nearly always be found in church, listening to the organ and the singing.  Not long after, he was admitted to the choir, where his sweet young voice joined in the church anthems.  Always before his mind was a great city where he knew he would find the most beautiful music—­the music of his dreams.  That city was Vienna, but it lay far away.  Josef looked down at his ragged clothing and wondered if he would ever see that magical city.

One morning his cousin told him there would be a procession through the town in honor of a prominent citizen who had just passed away.  A drummer was needed and the cousin had proposed Josef.  He showed the boy how to make the strokes for a march, with the result that Josef walked in the procession and felt quite proud of this exhibition of his skill.  The very drum he used that day is preserved in the little church at Hamburg.

A great event occurred in Josef’s prospects at the end of his second year of school life at Hamburg.  The Capellmeister, Reutter by name, of St. Stephen’s cathedral in Vienna, came to see his friend, the pastor of Hamburg.  He happened to say he was looking for a few good voices for the choir.  “I can find you one at least,” said the pastor; “he is a scholar of Frankh, the schoolmaster, and has a sweet voice.”

Josef was sent for and the schoolmaster soon returned leading him by the hand.

“Well my little fellow,” said the Capellmeister, drawing him to his knee, “can you make a shake?”

“No sir, but neither can my cousin Frankh.”

Reutter laughed at this frankness, and then proceeded to show him how the shake was done.  Josef after a few trials was able to perform the shake to the entire satisfaction of his teacher.  After testing him on a portion of a mass the Capellmeister was willing to take him to the Cantorei or Choir school of St. Stephen’s in Vienna.  The boy’s heart gave a great leap.  Vienna, the city of his dreams.  And he was really going there!  He could scarcely believe in his good fortune.  If he could have known all that was to befall him there, he might not have been so eager to go.  But he was only a little eight-year-old boy, and childhood’s dreams are rosy.