Bellona Times
speaker
1,919 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Aug 2026
last heard 1 Aug
Bellona Times’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
At a very early age I began to thump on the piano alone, and it was not long before I was able to pick out a few tunes.
When I was seven years old, I could play by ear all of the hymns and songs that my mother knew.
I had also learned the names of the notes in both clefs, but I preferred not to be hampered by notes.
about this time several ladies for whom my mother sewed heard me play and they persuaded her that i should at once be put under a teacher so arrangements were made for me to study the piano with a lady who was a fairly good musician
at the same time arrangements were made for me to study my books with this lady's daughter my music teacher had no small difficulty at first in pinning me down to the notes if she played my lesson over for me i invariably attempted to reproduce the required sounds without the slightest recourse to the written characters her daughter my other teacher also had her worries
She found that, in reading, whenever I came to words that were difficult or unfamiliar, I was prone to bring my imagination to the rescue and read from the picture.
She has laughingly told me, since then, that I would sometimes substitute whole sentences and even paragraphs from what meaning I thought the illustrations conveyed.
She said she sometimes was not only amused at the fresh treatment I would give an author's subject, but that when I gave some new and sudden turn to the plot of the story, she often grew interested and even excited in listening to hear what kind of denouement I would bring about.
But I am sure this was not due to dullness, for I made rapid progress in both my music and my books.
And so, for a couple of years, my life was divided between my music and my school books.
Music took up the greater part of my time.
I had no playmates, but amused myself with games, some of them my own invention, which could be played alone.
I knew a few boys whom I had met at the church which I attended with my mother, but I had formed no close friendships with any of them.
Then, when I was nine years old, my mother decided to enter me in the public school, so all at once I found myself thrown among a crowd of boys of all sizes and kinds.
Some of them seemed to me like savages.
I shall never forget the bewilderment, the pain, the heart-sickness of that first day at school.
I seemed to be the only stranger in the place.
Every other boy seemed to know every other boy.
i was fortunate enough however to be assigned to a teacher who knew me my mother made her dresses she was one of the ladies who used to pat me on the head and kiss me she had the tact to address a few words directly to me this gave me a certain sort of standing in the class and put me somewhat at ease
within a few days i had made one staunch friend and was on fairly good terms with most of the boys i was shy of the girls and remained so even now a word or look from a pretty woman sets me all a-tremble this friend bound me with hooks of steel in a very simple way
Showing 241–260 of 1,919 · page 13 of 96
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