SPRINGFIELD lies in the south-western corner of Massachusetts, about ninety miles from Boston. Its most notable feature is the Springfield Armory. Founded during the American Revolution, it produced America's first military musket and laid the foundations of the city's industrial and commercial prosperity.

Reggie, homesick for Lincoln, found Springfield strange and alien. He and Billie were laughed at by their schoolfellows for their shorts and long socks. Once again it was the outgoing Billie who, musically, fared better than his brother. He was taken up by a group of admiring women, who arranged for him to have piano lessons in Boston; later they sent him to study at the Damrosch and Mannes music schools in New York. Reggie, beside himself with jealousy, reckoned that if music were to play any part in his own life, he would have to join his father in Canada. Albert had settled in Burlington, a small town surrounded by market gardens and apple orchards at the western end of Lake Ontario. Mrs Goodall was sympathetic to the idea, for money was short, and within months of the family's arrival in Massachusetts Reggie, to his great delight, was packed off to Canada. Billie remained in Springfield.

Although Burlington's population has grown from 5,000 to 164,000 since the first world war, and most of its market gardens have fallen prey to property developers, the area round St Luke's Anglican church, with its bosky avenues and stone-and-clapboard summer homes, has changed little since the day the 13-year-old Reggie arrived there. Albert Goodall had fallen on his feet and was making a living as a piano teacher. He was also organist and choirmaster at St Luke’s, where he had been rewarded with a $50 increase in salary for raising the standard of its music. He lodged near the church at 432 Burlington Avenue, home of a Mrs Oliver. Albert's name was linked romantically with that of her daughter, but there was no question of marriage. Albert and Adelaide Goodall never divorced.