PART FOUR
"When Boone was fifteen he became friends with a black businessman here in Columbia named John Lange. Lange recognized Boone's talent and decided to promote him as a performer. There was another blind piano player touring in those days, an ex-slave called Blind Tom. He was below normal in intelligence and had to be taken care of, unlike Boone who was very bright and could get along on his own. But Tom, too, could play anything on the piano after hearing it only once. Tom had performed all over America, and the big deal was for a local pianist to try to outplay him. The pianist would play something hard and Tom would repeat the piece note for note, including the mistakes the pianist might throw in to trick him. Then Tom would play something and the pianist would try to repeat that. Tom always won. Well, Lange decided to have Boone challenge Tom. The theater was packed that night, black people on one side, white people on the other. Boone and Lange sat in the wings behind stage. When the time came for the challenge, Lange led Boone onstage. Boone played, and Tom repeated his performance. Then Tom played, and Boone sat right down and played the entire piece without a mistake even though he'd never heard it before. It brought down the house. People shouted, 'Give that boy a chance and he can be as great as Tom!' The local music store owner" -- ("whom I later bought out", Mr. Allen interjected, "when I went into business") -- "gave Boone a piano then and there, and one of the college teachers offered Boone piano lessons. She taught him classical music, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt. Soon after that Boone and Lange went out on a trial tour. Eventually they did so well they came home with several thousand dollars in a gunny sack, which they put in the bank. Boone played concerts all over America and also in the British Isles, where he was honored by royalty. But that was the beginning, that night in the old Opera House, just down the street there, where you now see that laundromat."

That was all I heard about Boone that afternoon. During my next visit, however, Mr. Allen told me another story about Boone.

"Once there was a tornado in Marshfield, Missouri, a town where Boone was scheduled to perform. The only undamaged building in town was the courthouse, so that's where Boone gave his concert. He'd composed a new piece based on a newspaper account of the storm, and he performed it there for the first time. He dragged his fingers up and down the keyboard and pounded the keys with his wrists and elbows to suggest wind, thunder, the crash of falling houses. The music made the audience relive the tornado, and some of them screamed and fled the building. Boone was sorry he'd frightened them so he donated the proceeds from the concert toward rebuilding the town. He was a generous man all his life, giving away pianos and organs as well as money. Later, The Marshfield Tornado became his most famous composition."