about such a feat. However, he hoarded every scrap of music paper he
could find and covered it with notes. Reutter gave no encouragement to
such proceedings. One day he asked what the boy was about, and when
he heard the lad was composing a "Salve Regina," for twelve voices,
he remarked it would be better to write it for two voices before
attempting it in twelve. "And if you must try your hand at
composition," added Reutter more kindly, "write variations on the
motets and vespers which are played in church."

As neither the Capellmeister nor any of the teachers offered to
show Josef the principles of composition, he was thrown upon his own
resources. With much self denial he scraped together enough money to
buy two books which he had seen at the second hand bookseller's and
which he had longed to possess. One was Fox's "Gradus ad Parnassum,"
a treatise on composition and counterpoint; the other Matheson's "The
Complete Capellmeister." Happy in the possession of these books, Josef
used every moment outside of school and choir practise to study them.
He loved fun and games as well as any boy, but music always came
first. The desire to perfect himself was so strong that he often added
several hours each day to those already required, working sixteen or
eighteen hours out of the twenty-four.

And thus a number of years slipped away amid these happy surroundings.
Little Josef was now a likely lad of about fifteen years. It was
arranged that his younger brother Michael was to come to the Cantorei.
Josef looked eagerly forward to this event, planning how he would help
the little one over the beginning and show him the pleasant things
that would happen to him in the new life. But the elder brother could
not foresee the sorrow and privation in store for him. From the moment
Michael's pure young voice filled the vast spaces of the cathedral, it