“’Tis thus the farmer sows his seed,
Folds his arms and takes his ease,
Stamps his feet and claps his hands,
Wheels around and thus he stands,
In waiting for somebody!”

As the rollicking melody poured from the darling maiden’s white and surpassingly shapely throat—filling the room with sounds unlike any ever heard by mortal ears in the mere sublunary realm—I could feel my extreme agitation of spirit begin to abate. Such was the intensely soothing effect of Sissy’s unearthly vocalizations that—however often I had listened in wonder to the wildly melodic rhapsodies that issued from her lips—they never failed to have a deliciously palliative, if not actively sedative, effect upon my soul.

No sooner had she completed the ditty than Sissy—after acknowledging our applause with a charming curtsy—embarked upon another song—then another—and another—until it became evident that we were to be treated to her entire musical repertoire. Very gradually—while Crockett clapped his hands and stamped his feet to the rhythm of each separate number—Sissy’s ineffable rendition of such standards as “Home, Daughter, Home,” “Green Willow,” and “The Butcher Boy” induced within my soul a condition not unlike that experienced by the confirmed user of opium who—having indulged to excess in his habitual vice—sinks into a profound, if not entirely disagreeable, trance.

How much time elapsed while I remained in this pleasurably stuporous condition, I am at a loss to say. All at once, I grew cognizant of a sudden cessation of sound. Sissy had stopped singing!

As my inebriated senses began to regain their normal acuity, I perceived that the angelic maiden was standing in an attitude of intense contemplation, her right index finger pressed against her tight-squeezed lips, her pale brow furrowed, her gaze directed downward At last she shrugged—sighed—and, looking at Crockett, declared: “I can’t think of any more songs.”

“What about ‘The Amsterdam Maid’?” Muddy piped up beside me.

“Oh yes!” Sissy cried delightedly. “I forgot!” Then extending one delicate hand in her mother’s direction, she exclaimed: “Come, Muddy. Sing it with me!”

“Goodness, no!” the dear woman cried, rapidly waving one hand back and forth in a gesture of emphatic demurral.

“Go on now, Miz Clemm,” the frontiersman urged. “I’d be tickled to hear the two of you singing together.”

“We-e-ell,” Muddy said in a relenting tone. “All right, then.” Rising to her feet, she moved to Sissy’s side and placed her arm around her daughter’s shoulder. Then—as the two stood gazing fondly at each other—the heaven-sent pair began to perform the rousing old “shanty” in voices of surpassing beauty:

“In Amsterdam there lived a maid
And she was mistress of her trade,
I’ll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid.

“For a-roving, a-roving, since roving’s been my ruin,
I’ll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid.