He sacrificed the scanty earnings of a whole winter's round of singing schools in country school districts to send her to the city for a course of lessons.
The next year the question of her studying abroad came up.

If Helen were to make the most of her voice, she must have it trained by masters in Italy and Paris.

Her parents were unwilling to assist her to cross the ocean.
Bear-Tone was a poor man; his singing schools never brought him more than a few hundred dollars a year.

He owned a little house in a neighboring village, where he kept "bachelor's hall"; he had a piano, a cabinet organ, a bugle, a guitar and several other musical instruments, including one fairly valuable old violin from which he was wont of an evening to produce wonderfully sweet, sad strains.
No one except the officials of the local savings bank knew how Bear-Tone raised the money for Helen Thomas's first trip abroad, but he did it.
Long afterwards people learned that he had mortgaged everything he possessed, even the old violin, in order to provide the necessary money.
Helen went to Europe and studied for two years.

She made her debut at Milan, sang in several of the great cities on the Continent, and at last, with a reputation as a great singer fully established, returned home four years later to sing in New York.
Bear-Tone meanwhile was teaching his singing schools, as usual, in the rural districts of Maine.