of running away from home. This he achieved at four years of age. He and a lank hound, beloved friend of his childhood, vanished in the woods and were gone all day. When a posse of anxious farmers, led by his nearly distracted father, found him, he was playing contentedly in the depths of the woods unafraid of the approaching night.

"Orville, darling, why did you run away?” His mother stopped hugging her restored son long enough to ask the question. "I was doin' huntin'," he said, and showed a stick which, supplemented by his active imagination, had become a gun. He had gone forth to slay rabbits and quail. That his quarry had escaped him did not disturb the baby vagabond. For him had been the thrill of adventure.

The Indiana farm was sold and the elder Harrold removed to Kansas. He opened a livery stable. Panic and dragging hard times ensued. They culminated for the Harrolds in a fire that destroyed the livery stable and the horses. This culmination of his untoward fortunes disheartened the Indiana man. He uttered the old cry of the despondent: "What's the use?" and began day labor. He was a man of all work, doing odd jobs in Lyons, Kansas, and his small son, his only child, worked with him.

THE

A Free Ride to Chicago

HERE was another removal, this time to
Newton, Kansas

Hard times gave no sign of abatement. Orville Harrold's father became ill. To his friend and confidant, his mother, young Orville, now aged seventeen, said, "I'm going back to Indiana. I know there will be plenty of work on grandfather's farm."

He had been used to free rides. He and his playmates, ever seeking the thrill of adventure, had practiced, to the point of nimble efficiency, the art of jumping on and off moving freighttrains. By their expertness, being aided by the good nature of the conductors, they had "beaten their way" to Chicago to see the World's Fair, and to Oklahoma to see the opening of a strip of land to settlers, and the grand rush of the landseekers for their fraction of El Dorado. In consequence, his mother's, "But you haven't money to pay for a ticket, dear," was met by his "I can get back to Indiana without money."

On a dark night a boy with large, glowing dark eyes might have been seen making his way quietly across the train yards at Newton. He carried a bundle wrapped in paper. That constituted his wardrobe. Maternal solicitude had provided sandwiches and cake that bulged from his pockets.

Yes, the side door of a freight car stood open. The conductor was not in sight. The boy knew the car was destined for a trip across Iowa and Illinois. He climbed aboard, stretched out on the floor of the box car and rested his head on his wardrobe. He slept well and awoke hungry. He was breakfasting on one of the sandwiches when a conductor opened the door of the car. "Here, kid! Get off!"

Orville Harrold debated the matter. Unlike David Belasco's band of seventeen conductors, many of whom were not interested in his story, Orville Harrold's conductor "listened to reason." The box car was empty. The boy being slight and anæmic, weighed considerably less than one hundred pounds. So he did not add materially to the locomotive's labors. Moreover, the "kid" had a pleasant, boyish voice and knew all the popular songs. The conductor spent much time in the car. The lad had exhausted his repertoire before he hopped stealthily off in the night, the precaution being taken to protect the conductor against reports to the company by others of the train crew.

"My grandfather was glad to see me because there was a great deal of work to be done on the farm, and he wanted another hand," says the tenor of this phase of his troubled develop

ment.

The next year his father and mother returned to Indiana. The three lived in a hamlet near Grandfather Harrold's farm and the father and son worked on the farm. Having been graduated at last from high school, the boy felt justified in seeking "a position for an educated man." His search ended with a casket-manufacturing concern in Muncie, Indiana. He kept its books and drove its delivery wagon. "No, it did not seem to me an especially gruesome occupation," he said, "I thought of the ten dollars a week it brought me. The money was essential. But, one night, I went out to the warehouse to get some caskets to take to the station for shipping. I stumbled across a corpse. I don't mind telling you I ran, and that my hair stood on end with fright. Some embalmers had been meeting in the warehouse for a lecture and demonstration, and had left their subject behind them."

conversation ended in Mrs. Boyd's offer to give him free vocal lessons.

His removal to Indiana ended the lessons after a few months. But Mrs. Gaston Boyd still lives and rejoices in the fortunes of her pupil. She

wrote him, after his brilliant début at the Metropolitan, saying: "I always expected it."

Alexander Ernest inoff, a Russian conductor, gave concerts in Muncie. The young tenor was one of an ensemble of local singers whom he

hurriedly collected. He detected the voice that was so much higher and sweeter and richer than the others: "You must have lessons, my boy," he said and he gave them, as Mrs. Gaston Boyd had given them, without recompense, save that joy which pervades the heart of a true musician at the discovery of an exceptional gift.

Madame Schumann-Heink, while giving a concert at Muncie, heard the same voice-clear, high, fresh as the dew on a June rose. "Whose

voice is that different one?" asked the visiting star. "The high one? That belongs to Orville Harrold," answered the local director. "Bring him to me," she commanded.

The young man was brought in and bashfully and awkwardly acknowledged the presentation to the great singer honored on two continents.

"You have a voice that will make you a great singer. You should go into grand opera. You have the voice for it," she said. That was all, but it implanted definite ambition in the country boy's heart. It set. a star high in the heaven of his hope. He resolved to go to New York. He arrived with a letter to a manager of one of the Shubert companies in one pocket and two and a half dollars in the other.

"I stopped at the Grand Union Hotel, across the street from the Grand Central Station." So the tenor told me the tale of his entrance into New York. "I got a room for a dollar and a quarter. The next day, I called on Claxton Wilstach and presented my letter of introduction. It was from relatives of his at Muncie. He invited me to go up to his apartment for dinner that evening, an invitation which I accepted with greater pleasure than he knew. We talked about my experience. I sang for him. He told me to be at the office next morning and he would have me sing for Lee Shubert. I wasn't late at that appointment. Mr. Shubert said, after hearing me, 'I'll give him a job right away.' He put me into 'The Social Whirl,' at the Casino. I earned fifty dollars a week, more money than I had ever dreamed of getting. I remained with the show until it went to Philadelphia. I didn't want to leave New York, so I remained here and tried to get other work. I joined three other fellows in a quartette. We went on the vaudeville circuit. I had to leave town after all. Our bookings brought us back to the Victoria Theater. Oscar Hammerstein heard me sing. He asked me to go down to the Manhattan Opera House the next day. After the audition he came close to me and touched my throat. He said: 'My boy, you've got it here but,' his finger shifted to my forehead. 'What have you got there?' I answered: 'I don't know what I've got there, Mr. Hammerstein, I haven't had a chance to test it.' He

signed a contract with me at sixty dollars a week and arranged to send me to Oscar Saenger, the vocal teacher. Mr. Hammerstein paid for my lessons. When his season opened at the London Opera House, I was one of his singers. He sent me to Paris to take vocal lessons. My star was in the ascendant.

"But Mr. Hammerstein's failure in London nearly killed me. I had to go back to vaudeville and comic opera. I reorganized the quartette. I sang for awhile with 'Naughty Marietta.' Those quartette days in vaudeville were not simply lean. They were bony. I was up against it. We took a room on Thirty-eighth Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. All of us slept in that room."

A Modest American

NY park-bench nights?" I queried.

"No. I always managed to sleep under cover. But I have split a ten-cent beef stew." "Which means?"

"That we would go into a cheap restaurant together and order a plate of beef stew and two spoons. We ate together until the plate was emptied, a time that came too soon."

"And now, you are the American Caruso with an extended repertoire."

"I know twenty-five rôles." Does any unmusical person among my readers know what toil and study this represents? Most opera singers are identified with three or four rôles.

"But I am not a Caruso," says Orville Harrold, "and never will be. Caruso's voice is the voice of the ages. It has a quality unlike any other. It will never be repeated. I won because I thought I could win."

Mr. Harrold's peregrinations led him to Chicago. He sang at Ravenna. There, members of the Metropolitan Opera House organization heard him and reported his quality to their chief, Signor Gatti Cazazza.

. Riccardo Martin was singing with that cooperative band of artists, The American Singers Society, at the Park Theater, New York. Mr. Martin was indisposed and Mr. Harrold was asked to sing his rôle. Again, representatives of the Metropolitan Opera House force were present. Again a report reached Gatti Cazazza of a tenor that surpassed at least all native products. Mr. Harrold was invited to an audition. He joined the Metropolitan Opera Singers.

Farther heights? He says not. He thinks that "a man who, at forty-three, has brought up his three children well, and has a farm in Connecticut to which he can bring his father and mother, hasn't done badly." He wants to live on that farm and "be a free man."

HIS is the second and concluding paper in

THIS is Addington Bruce's entertaining treat

ment of a very interesting subject. He gives here nine different unquestionable records of happenings that actually followed distinct warnings. These, [added to the true stories in Mr. Bruce's previous instalment, in our February issue, provide rather startling evidence that there may be some basis for a belief in premonitions.

We hold no brief in the matter. But we would like to hear from our readers regarding the subject. Perhaps you will be glad to tell us of any premonitions you have had, or any previous warnings of evil or danger or anything else that came to pass. We will be glad to consider your manuscripts for publication, and to pay promptly for any that may prove acceptable. All manuscripts should be in this office not later than April 1.

Historic Dream of John Williams

N°

"O less extraordinary is the historic dream of John Williams, mirroring the murder of Mr. Perceval, in the House of Commons, eight days before its occurrence. The Society for Psychical Research has an account of this, purporting to be in Mr. Williams's own words, and signed by him. He was living, at the time of the dream, in Cornwall, busy with the management of some large mines, and giving no thought to political affairs.

"About the second or third day of May, 1812," his narrative runs, "I dreamed that I was in the lobby of the House of Commons-a place well known to me. A small man, dressed in a blue coat and white waistcoat entered, and immediately I saw a person whom I had observed on my first entrance dressed in a snuff-colored coat with metal buttons, take a pistol from under his coat, and present it at the little man above mentioned.

"The pistol was discharged, and the ball entered under the left breast of the person against whom it was directed. I saw the blood issue from

I

the place where the ball had struck him, his countenance instantly altered, and he fell to the ground. Upon inquiry who the sufferer might be, I was informed that he was the chancellor. I understood him to be Mr. Perceval, chancellor of the exchequer. I further saw the murderer laid hold of by several of the gentlemen in the room.

"Upon waking, I told the particulars to my wife; she treated the matter lightly, and desired me to go to sleep, saying it was only a dream. I soon fell asleep again, and again the dream presented itself with precisely the same circumstances. After waking the second time, and stating the matter again to my wife, she only repeated her request that I would compose my

self, and dismiss the subject from my mind. On my falling asleep the third time, the same dream, without any alteration, was repeated, and I awoke as on the former occasions in great agitation.

"So much alarmed and impressed was I that I felt much doubt whether it was not my duty to take a journey to London, and communicate upon the subject with the party

principally concerned. Upon this point I consulted with some friends whom I met on business the following day. They dissuaded me from my purpose, saying I might expose myself to contempt and vexation, or be taken up as a fanatic. Upon this, I said no more but anxiously watched the newspapers.

"On the evening of May 13, my second son, returning from Truro, came in a hurried manner into the room where I was sitting, and exclaimed, 'Oh, father, your dream has come true! Mr. Perceval has been shot in the lobby of the House of Commons; there is an account come to Truro from London.' The fact was, Mr. Perceval was assassinated on the evening of the eleventh."

A

Named His Pallbearers

GAIN, chance may account for some, but it cannot be made to account for all of the numerous instances in which the warning of death comes in a dream, not to a second party but to the person who is to die. One of the best authenticated cases of the kind occurred some years ago at Valparaiso, Indiana, in connection with the death of Thomas Pratt, a wellknown merchant of that city. Mr. Pratt was a veteran of the Civil War, and many of his friends and former comrades were in the habit of dropping into his store two or three times a week, to exchange reminiscences. One evening, when half a dozen were present, he told them of a peculiar dream he had had the previous night.

In

He had dreamed, he said, that he was dead, yet possessed the strange power of one in a trance to see all that went on about him. the dream he watched with interest the preparations for his burial, and even noted the names of those selected to serve as pallbearers. He saw himself borne to Memorial Hall for the funeral services, and afterwards taken to the cemetery, where his coffin was lowered into the grave. With the throwing of the first spadeful of earth, he awoke.

His friends joked with him about the dream, and, in a few minutes, departed, leaving him to all appearance in the best of health. But the next morning he was found dead in bed, and the men whom he had named in his dream were the pallbearers at his funeral.

that might be cited. Mrs. A. W. Verrail, a prominent member of the Society for Psychical Research, who has cultivated the faculty of automatic writing, on December 11, 1901, found in her automatic script these puzzling sentences: "Nothing too mean-the trivial helps-gives confidence. Hence this: Frost and a candle in the dim light. Marmontel, he was reading on a sofa, or in bed-there was only a candle's light. She will surely remember this. The book was lent, not his own-he talked about it.” A week later there was evidently a recurrence in the script to the same topic, for Mrs. Verrall discovered that she had then automatically written:

"Marmontel is right. It was a French book, a memoir, I think. Passy may help, Souvenirs de Passy, or Fleury. Marmontel was not on the cover-the book was bound and was lent-two volumes in old-fashioned binding and print."

She had no idea what all this meant. But three months afterwards the mystery was solved or, perhaps, I should say, was made more mysterious-with the arrival of a friend, a Mr. Marsh, for a week-end visit. The evening of his arrival he chanced to mention that, shortly before, he had been reading a volume of the "Memoirs" of Marmont el, a French author. At once, remembering the references in the automatic script, Mrs. Verrall asked for particulars, and learned that he had been reading this book on two nights, February 20 and 21; that on both occasions he had read it by candlelight, once while in bed and the other time while lying on two chairs; that the volume contained allusions to both Fleury and Passy, and that it was not a book of his own but one he had borrowed from a public library.

There were certain minor discrepancies between his account and the statements in the script, but the general coincidence was so close as to convince Mrs. Verrall that her automatic writing of December, 1901, had accurately predicted her friend's action on two nights in February, 1902.

AGA

The Ruined Carpet

GAIN, Mrs. J. W. Mackenzie, of Rossshire, Scotland, at breakfast one Sunday morning, detailed an odd little dream she had had the previous night.

"I thought," she said, "that there were a number of people in our drawing room, among others Mr. Jones, and that I left the room for a few minutes to see if supper was ready. When I came back I found the carpet, which was a new one, all covered with black spots. I was very angry, and when Mr. Jones said it was ink,