working at his task with passionate eagerness.

At last it was finished, and Sebastian in the joy of possessing it for
his very own, crept into bed without the precaution of putting
away all traces of his work. Poor boy, he had to pay dearly for his
forgetfulness. As he lay sleeping, Christoph, thinking he heard sounds
in his brother's room, came to seek the cause. His glance, as he
entered the room, fell on the open books. There was no pity in
his heart for all this devoted labor, only anger that he had been
outwitted by his small brother. He took both books away and hid them
in a place where Sebastian could never find them. But he did not
reflect that the boy had the memory of all this beautiful music
indelibly printed on his mind, which helped him to bear the bitter
disappointment of the loss of his work.

When he was fifteen Sebastian left his brother's roof and entered the
Latin school connected with the Church of St. Michael at Lüneburg. It
was found he had a beautiful soprano voice, which placed him with the
scholars who were chosen to sing in the church service in return for
a free education. There were two church schools in Lüneburg, and the
rivalry between them was so keen, that when the scholars sang in the
streets during the winter months to collect money for their support,
the routes for each had to be carefully marked out, to prevent
collision.

Soon after he entered St. Michael's, Bach lost his beautiful soprano
voice; his knowledge of violin and clavier, however, enabled him
to keep his place in the school. The boy worked hard at his musical
studies, giving his spare time to the study of the best composers. He
began to realize that he cared more for the organ than for any other