"Kalman Kalmar will sing! Come, Kalman, 'The Shepherd's Love.'" "No, 'The Soldier's Bride.'" "No, no, 'My Sword and my Cup.'" "First my own cup," cried the boy, pressing toward the beer keg in the corner and catching up a mug.
"Give him another," shouted a voice.
"No, Kalman," said his sister in a low voice, "no more beer." But the boy only laughed at her as he filled his mug again.
"I am too full to sing just now," he cried; "let us dance," and, seizing Irma, he carried her off under the nose of the disappointed Sprink, joining with the rest in one of the many fascinating dances of the Hungarian people.
But the song was only postponed.

In every social function of the foreign colony, Kalman's singing was a feature.

The boy loved to sing and was ever ready to respond to any request for a song.

So when the cry for a song rose once more, Kalman was ready and eager.
He sprang upon a beer keg and cried, "What shall it be ?" "My song," said Irma, who stood close to him.
The boy shook his head.

"Not yet." "'The Soldier's Bride,'" cried a voice, and Kalman began to sing.
He had a beautiful face with regular clean-cut features, and the fair hair and blue grey eyes often seen in South Eastern Russia.
As he sang, his face reflected the passing shades of feeling in his heart as a windless lake the cloud and sunlight of a summer sky.
The song was a kind of Hungarian "Young Lochinvar." The soldier lover, young and handsome, is away in the wars; the beautiful maiden, forced into a hateful union with a wealthy land owner, old and ugly, stands before the priest at the altar.