A Boys' Choir Rebuilds a Town..!!

Hollywood, in Maryland, was a small, sleepy town — until Lewis moved there with his family and settled beside one of the banks of the river, near the harbor.

The press commentator Lewis — who, besides, is a writer and lecturer — had grown tired of the noise of the city of Washington and of living in it, so he moved to Hollywood and bought three acres of land fit for farming, built upon it a modern house, and fitted it with a broadcasting studio. In this part of the town, called Placid Harbor, the Lewis family (his wife Alice, his son Fulton Lewis, and his daughter Betsy) settled down to the simple, quiet living that prevails in the life of small towns.

The arrival of that famous personality shed an air of enthusiasm over Hollywood, for Lewis lost no time in opening the way to brotherliness and drawing close to the people. In 1947 he offered to broadcast the town's own Christmas program from the little church whose building the inhabitants had lately completed. At the last moment Lewis gathered a band of youngsters, formed of them a small choir, and recorded some carols for it, though it had no training in the tunes. But these youngsters, athirst for amusement, added no breadth to his fame.

Lewis was a bold and outspoken commentator, big of frame and thick of hair, weighing 190 pounds, capable of drawing the serpent from its lair if he chose... To the children he seemed a magician: he could sing and play the piano in church, and beyond this he was a sociable man, close to people's hearts. The youngsters wasted no long time; they made up their minds, gathered some of their parents and relatives, and all marched toward Placid Harbor to ask Lewis to be the leader of their choir.

The offer was tempting to Lewis, who possesses a fine voice, and who is moreover a skillful musician, an expert hand at fitting out halls, a professional player of the organ — and then a man of work and a seeker of amusement at one and the same time, to lighten the weight of boredom that comes of steady work.

Lewis looked at those sweet young faces and said:
"Very well — only, if we begin the work, it must have a good result. You must do your utmost, and attend every night."

Lewis began working with 15 of them, between the ages of eight and nineteen; they would reach the church before him, learn well everything he set before them, and obey and respect him.

Then he divided them into sections according to the kinds of their voices, and they gave themselves up to exact training, on which they spent every second of their time.

And one day Lewis awoke to a sweet truth: he had succeeded in forming a successful choir in a period of no more than six months.

Lewis felt this success, and he sensed that those little sparrows needed greener pastures than the one they were in; so he arranged for them the chance to sing in a great church in Washington, where they won so great a success that Lewis felt the road of success had opened before him. When he returned to his house he felt a heavy weariness after his work as head of the troupe, made up of fifteen youngsters, every one of them eager for experiment and discovery; so he asked his wife that no one should disturb him, since he had to prepare a broadcast for the following day:

But he had scarcely settled down for a few minutes when he heard the sound of the bell ringing in the house, and then a young voice saying directly after: "But the matter is very important, madam."

At that Lewis jumped up, brimming over with love and tenderness, and stood before the youngsters, asking what the important matter might be.

Then a boy of fifteen named Bobby Adams stepped forward and said: "It is that pipe organ we heard in the Washington church. We have made up our minds to buy it."

"And do you know how much it costs?"
"Of course," said Bobby. "We know very well that it is expensive; its price may be five hundred dollars. So we have resolved to work and earn money after school hours, and we wanted you to be the first person to know of the matter."

Lewis gave them a calm glance and said: "The price of the small organ comes to 25 thousand dollars!"

The youngsters were astounded, and bewilderment took hold of them. As for Lewis, before turning his back to return to his work, he said in jest: "If you really want to get an organ, all you have to do is make one."

"That is a great idea!" one of them shouted. "We will make it ourselves — but will you help us as you helped us in forming the choir?"

Lewis was crossing the passage in haste, asking himself how many years the making of an organ would take, should a man venture on such a work!!

On the evening of the next day, Lewis attended the choir's rehearsal, but he opened the work harshly when he said, joking: "You have been building castles in the air, youngsters! Imagine yourselves making a pipe organ!!"

Scarcely had Lewis uttered those words when bitter disappointment rose in the youngsters' faces; the enthusiasm with which they had received him died, and turned into looks full of pain and vexation. The youngsters went through their exercises, but their hearts were not in them. And when the work was over, they went out in perfect quiet — but that ember had gone out.

Lewis realized then that he must begin the impossible work; so he asked them to come back, and said to them in all sincerity: "I do not think you appreciate what you are asking; it is truly hard, exhausting work, and it may take months — nay, many years. But if you insist on beginning the work and finishing it, then we shall try."

Those who were buying their needs near Dean's store will long remember the morning of May 17, 1948, when a big truck appeared, loaded with matched organ pipes, working tools, pails of water, brushes, and other necessary things. And crowning all this, the youngsters appeared, standing and covering every inch of the empty spaces. The people of the village gathered and stood watching the boys unload 700 old pipes and set them down in the open ground by the church.

The youngsters gave themselves to their work in full earnest, and paid no heed to the onlookers standing about. Lewis had found in his possession a few pipes he had collected in the course of his travels, and he added them to the collection by the church. The youngsters plunged into cleaning this great collection, taking no notice of the mockers among the crowds that multiplied around them; and when these observed the youngsters' indifference to them, they went away — the sun was then drawing toward its setting.

In the evening, after that hard work from which their hands had swollen, the youngsters loaded the pipes onto the truck and carried them to the lower floor of Lewis's house, where the organ was to be made. And between one night and the next morning, Placid Harbor turned into one great workshop; equipment spread here and there, and Lewis would look at it and blame himself for what he had let it in for.

From that day Lewis's house teemed with youngsters morning, noon, and evening; they prepared hundreds of stops for the air pipes, and made ready the thousands of small parts required.

Then one day there happened what was bound to happen. The time came when they needed to buy certain costly parts to complete the work. And Lewis, who intensely hated speaking tours, made a great sacrifice to gather the required sum. As for the boys — every one of them devout, and of those who always go to church — they prayed fervently that God would send a person with knowledge enough of the buying of organ parts; they believed in the depths of their souls that he was bound to come, and they waited with longing.

And on one of those evenings their hope came true, when Lewis opened the door and said in a voice whose astonishment was clothed in perfect calm: "The prayer of a large company of youngsters has been answered!" The comer was the lawyer Joe Whiteford, one of the devotees of the organ, who had come from Washington to discuss certain practical matters with Lewis. Whiteford was amazed when he saw the youngsters' activity. And three days later he took off his working coat and laid down his tools, and stood gazing with surpassing pleasure at the thousand pipes which he, with those boys, had turned into a splendid instrument of music.

And so, instead of the many years Lewis had believed the making of the organ would take, it was finished in a period of six months. Now the boys and girls began to think of holding a concert, during the special broadcast after Christmas, to the sound of the organ. But new troubles arose.

They had to move the organ from the lower floor of Lewis's house to the church. And when the distance was measured, their faces turned pale, and they realized that they must alter the size of the church so that it might hold the great organ. Within a few days the walls were pulled down, wooden seats were set up for the choir, the place was widened, and then the walls were put back. And upon close checking it appeared that the size of the organ case was wrong, and that they must take it apart and make it anew.

Despair took hold of the hearts of those youngsters, for they believed the Christmas celebration was lost; they gathered in the rest room, pain rising in their faces. Then Lewis sat down at his own organ and began to play quietly. Scarcely had the melody of the Lord's Prayer taken possession of the air of the room than the members of the choir slipped away one after another and made for the lower floor of the house — and within moments the sound of hammers rose... Then Lewis could do nothing but follow them...

Hours before the appointed opening of the celebration, on December 24, 1948, that little church beside the road began to overflow with visitors — among them the workman, the farmer, the old doctor, the blacksmith, and others. And among them was a representative of one of the companies that sell musical instruments, which had heard of what was going on in the little village of Hollywood and had sent him to verify the truth of the rumor.

Anxiety rose in the faces of those present, and lips were pressed tight: "Will the instrument give out music, one wonders?" The clock struck seven, the hour set for the celebration to begin, and the crowds held their breath, waiting and watching... Then the radio engineer signaled to Lewis, seated at the organ, to begin. In a few seconds the voice of the organ rose, gentle as the blowing of the breeze, sweet as the gliding of the brook's waters, and those present heard the strains of the hymn of faith flooding that silent church with majesty.

Suddenly the youngsters appeared in the aisles on the two sides of the church, in their chestnut-and-white robes, their voices rising in harmony and blending with the voice of their beloved organ. And when Fulton Lewis stood to tell the crowds what those youngsters had endured for the sake of accomplishing this great work, the tears of many flowed — above all when he said: "This is the fruit of faith, when it drives the faithful to work!"

And today one feels a new atmosphere prevailing over the little town of Hollywood, where fathers and children have built a recreation room in the church for the gathering of the youngsters and their kin. There is, besides, a feeling of dignity and good keeping that pervades the town. The children are happy with their new school, whose land was given by Mr. Merville Dean, who owns a lumber company. And beyond this, they hope that one of the industrial companies will accept Mr. Dean's gift of a hundred acres of land, offered to any company that will bring new factories to the town to give work to the inhabitants.

Hollywood, which but yesterday was an unknown, out-of-the-way spot, has today become a bright, shining town, all hope and promise. Its grown folk declare with every pride: "It is our children who put our town on the map." And the voice of Fulton Lewis rises, full of wonder, to say: "Youngsters can do anything!"

Translated by "The Woman's Voice"