Barker’s absence, and the mood was optimistic on the hillside—the perfect atmosphere for recruitment. Snow covered the grounds with an inch of accumulation, a wet snow that clung to the top of every tree branch and rested in the pockets of every bough, pretty enough to engage smiles in even the sickest of patients. Wolfgang and Susannah, along with Lincoln, spoke to every patient and staff member, searching for people who were willing to sing and still had the lungs to belt out a tune. Rumor grew throughout the day until talk of a choir was on everyone’s lips. By nighttime they’d collected twenty-seven volunteers, two of whom Big Fifteen and Rufus recruited from down the hill—a man and a woman. Abel, to their delight, surprised them by grabbing five eager kids from the children’s pavilion. The turnout was better than Wolfgang had expected. They gathered on the fourth-floor solarium around nine o’clock that evening. Several neighboring patients, including an ailing Mr.
