"You can sing! Oh, you can sing! I'll teach you! I'll teach you!" The singing school that winter served chiefly as a pretty background for Bear-Tone's delight in Helen Thomas's voice, the interest he took in it, and the untiring efforts he made to teach her.
"One of the rarest of voices!" he said to the old Squire one night when he had come to the farmhouse on one of his frequent visits.

"Not once will you find one in fifty years.

It's a deep tribble.

Why, Squire, that girl's voice is a discovery! And it will grow in her, Squire! It is just starting now, but by the time she's twenty-five it will come out wonderful." The soprano of the particular quality that Bear-Tone called "deep tribble" is that sometimes called a "falcon" soprano, or dramatic soprano, in distinction from light soprano.

It is better known and more enthusiastically appreciated by those proficient in music than by the general public.