The Eight-Year-Old Drummer Who Captivated the Band

Mr. C. C. Griffith has a partner in his business in the person of William Thompson, a man well known in the city, especially as having at one time been manager of Blackwell's hotel on the wharf. The firm will extend the business beyond the lines limited by Mr. Griffith while alone and will embrace the dealing in furniture, old and new, in the fullest meaning of the term. Speaking of old Griffith—and everybody knows him—he has a son who is a musical prodigy. He has not yet grown out of dresses, being but 8 years old, but he can follow the measures of music like the directors of a band. His mother has decorated his little frock with gold lace to distinguish him and keep him in keeping with the gaily caparisoned members of the band on state occasions. Thus arrayed, he played a drum with the crack bands who visited the city on the Fourth of July—played music he had never heard before, played it perfectly in exact time, never missing a stroke—to the utter astonishment of the members of the band as well as the crowd who listened. After one such performance, the leader of the Coeur d'Alene military band laid his hand on little Tom's head saying: 'I would give much to be able to watch the child's career—I wonder what he will grow to be.' Tom, naturally enough, of course, is the idol of his parents.