Uncle William/Chapter 14

HEY had paused at the foot of a flight of stairs. Down the narrow hall-way floated a mingled sound of voices, high and low, with drifting strains of violin-bows laid across strings and quickly withdrawn.

The old man looked at her inquiringly. “They hain’t begun?”

She shook her head. “They ’re tuning up.”

His face lifted a little. “I reckoned that could n’t be the beginnin’. But ye can’t al’ays tell. They make queer noises sometimes.”

“Yes.—I must leave you now.” She had ushered him into a small hall. “I ’m going to have you sit here, quite near the platform, where I can see you.” She looked at him a little anxiously. “You don’t need to stay if you don’t like it, you know.”

“Oh, I shall like it fust-rate,” he responded. “It looks like a real comf’tabul chair to set in.”

He seated himself in it and beamed upon the room. The place she had selected for him was near the platform and facing a little toward the audience. It had occurred to her, in a last moment of indecision, that Uncle William might enjoy the audience if the music proved too classic for him. She left him with a little murmur of apology.

A young girl in pink chiffon, with a bunch of huge pink roses, fluttered forward with a program.

Uncle William took it in pleased fingers. He searched for his spectacles and mounted them on his nose, staring at the printed lines. The audience had settled down to attention. Amused glances traveled toward the big figure absorbed in its program. Sergia had whispered a word here and there as she left the room. It made its way back through the crowd—“A friend of Mademoiselle Lvova’s—a sea-captain. She has brought him to hear the MacDowell pieces.” The audience smiled and relaxed. The music was beginning. Two young girls played a concerto from Rubenstein, with scared, flying fingers. They were relieved when it was done, and the audience clapped long and loud. Some one brought them bunches of flowers—twin lilies, tied exactly alike, with long white ribbons. Uncle William, his spectacles pushed up on the tufts of hair, watched with admiring glance as they escaped from the stage. He turned to his right-hand neighbor, an old gentleman with white hair and big, smooth, soft hands, who had watched the performance with gentle care.

“Putty girls,” said Uncle William, cordially.

The man looked at him, smiling. “One of them is my granddaughter, sir,” he responded affably.

She came from the door by the platform and sat down near her grandfather, the lilies and the long white ribbons trailing from nervous fingers. Uncle William leaned forward and smiled at her, nodding encouragement.

She replied with a quick, shy smile and fixed her eyes on the platform.

More pupils followed—young girls and old ones, and a youth with a violin that fluttered and wailed and grew harmonious at last as the youth forgot himself. Uncle William’s big, round face beamed upon him. Sergia, watching him from behind the scenes, could see that he regarded them all as nice children. He would have looked the same had they played on jews’-harps and tin horns. But he was enjoying it. She was glad of that.

She came out during the intermission to speak with him. “They ’re all through now,” she said encouragingly.

He looked down at his program bewildered, and a little disappointed, she thought. “They got ’em all done?—I did n’t hear that ‘Wanderin’ Iceberg’ one,” he said regretfully. “I cal’ated to listen to that. But I was so interested in the children that I clean forgot.—They ’re nice children.” He looked about the room where they were laughing and talking in groups. “Time to go, is it?”

“Not yet. That was only the first half—the pupils’ half. The rest is what I wanted you to hear—the sea-pieces and the others. They are played by real musicians.”

“You goin’ to do one?” asked Uncle William.

“Yes, one.” She smiled at him.

“I ’ll stay.” He settled back comfortably.

“That ’s right. I must go now and speak to some of the mothers. They only come for the first half. They will be going home.” She moved away.

Uncle William’s eyes followed her admiringly. He turned to the old gentleman beside him. “Nice girl,” he said.

“She is a fine teacher,” responded the old gentleman. “She had not been here long, but she had a good following. She has temperament.”

“Has she?” Uncle William looked after her a little quizzically. “Makes ’em stand around does she? You can’t ever tell about temper. Sometimes it ’s the quietest ones has the wust. But she makes ’em work good. You can see that.”

“Yes, she makes them work.” The old gentleman smiled upon him kindly and patronizingly. He had been born and brought up in New York. He was receptive to new ideas and people. There was something about Uncle William—a subtle tang—that he liked. It was a new flavor.

Uncle William studied his program. “Sounds more sensible ’n some of it.” He had laid a big finger on a section near the end. “I can understand that, now, ‘To an Old White Pine.’ That’s interestin’. Now that one there.” He spelled out the strange sounds slowly, “‘Opus 6, No. 2, A minor, All-e-gro.’ Now mebbe you know what that means—I don’t. But an ol’ white-pine tree—anybody can see that. We don’t hev ’em up my way—pine-trees. But I like ’em—al’ays did—al’ays set under ’em when they ’re handy. You don’t hev many round here?”

The old gentleman smiled. “No; there are not many old white pines in New York. I can remember a few, as a boy.”

“Can ye?—Right in the center here?” Uncle William was interested.

“Well, not just here—a little out. But they ’re gone.” The old gentleman sighed. “MacDowell has caught the spirit. You can hear the wind soughing through them and the branches creaking a little and rubbing, and a still kind of light all around. It ’s very nice.”

“Good poetry, I s’pose,” assented Uncle William. “I don’t care so much for poetry myself. Some on it ’s good,” he added thoughtfully. “‘The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck,’ that swings off kind o’ nice, and ‘Horatius at the Bridge.’ But most on it has a kind o’ travelin’ round way with it—has to go round by Robin Hood’s barn to get anywheres. I ’m gen’ally sort o’ drowsy whilst it’s bein’ read.”

The old gentleman had laughed out genially. “MacDowell does n’t write poetry, except short things—lines for headings. He makes it on the piano.”

“Makes an old white-pine tree?” demanded Uncle William.

“Well—something like that.”

Uncle William returned to his program. “There ’ll be a ‘water-lily,’ then, will the’? and an ‘eagle,’ and a ‘medder brook,’ and a ‘wanderin’ iceberg,’ and a ‘pair o’ bars’?” He looked up with a soft twinkle. “And like enough a rooster or two, and a knock-kneed horse. I keep a-wonderin’ what that wanderin’ iceberg ’ll be like. I ’ve seen a wanderin’ iceberg,—leastways I ’ve come mighty near one,—but I ain’t ever heard it. You ever met a wanderin’ iceberg?” His tone was friendly and solicitous.

The New York man shook his head. “Only the human kind.”

Uncle William chuckled. “I ’ve met that kind myself—and the other kind, too.” He paused suddenly. The audience had hushed itself. Sergia was seated at the piano.

It was a Beethoven number, a sonata. Uncle William apparently went to sleep. Sergia, watching him, smiled gently. He must be very tired, poor dear. The next number will keep him awake all right. It did. It was sung by a famous baritone—“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest! Yo ho! Yo ho!” Uncle William sat up. Joy radiated from him. He clutched his chair with both hands and beamed. The audience laughed with delight and clapped an encore.

“Goin’ to do it again, is he?” said Uncle William. “Now that ’s good of him, ain’t it? But I should think he ’d kind o’ like to. I ’d like to do it myself if I could.”

“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest!” rolled out the voice.

“He gets the spirit of it,” said the old gentleman when the song had ended and the applause had subsided.

“Jest so. I ’ve been there myself—come within an ace o’ havin’ my chest set on once. They was all fightin’ drunk, too—jest like that. Gives ye the same kind o’ feelin’s—creepy and shivery-like. What ’s he goin’ to do?” A long-haired youth had appeared on the platform. He approached the piano and stood looking at it thoughtfully, his head a little to one side.

“It ’s Flanders. He plays the MacDowell—the ‘Wandering Iceberg,’ you know.”

“H’m-m.” Uncle William took down his spectacles to look at the youth through them. “You think he can do it all right? He ain’t very hefty.”

The youth had seated himself. He struck a heavy, thundering chord on the keys and subsided. His hands hung relaxed at his sides and his eyes were fixed dreamily on the wall before him.

“Has he got her started?” It was a loud whisper from Uncle William.

The old gentleman shook his head.

Uncle William waited patiently. There was a gentle trickle on the keys—and another. Then a pause and more trickles—then some galloping notes, with heavy work in the bass.

Uncle William looked interested. “She ’s gettin’ under way, like enough.

“Sh-h!” The old gentleman held up a hand.

There were some long, flowing lines and a swirling sound that might have been water, and low growls in the bass, and a general rumbling and gritting and sliding and tumbling among the notes. The sounds stopped altogether. The youth sat staring before him. Applause broke from the audience. The youth got up and left the platform.

Uncle William stared after him with open mouth. “Has he got her done?” He turned to the man at his side.

“All done. How did you like it?”

“Well”—Uncle William squinted thoughtfully at his program—“I thought I was goin’ to like it fust-rate—if he ’d got to it.”

“He did n’t get there, then?” The man laughed.

“Not to the iceberg.” Uncle William shook his head. A kindly look grew in his face. “I dunno ’s he ’s so much to blame, though. An iceberg must be kind o’ hard to do, I should think likely.”

“I should think it might be. Music is n’t cold enough.”

“’T ain’t the cold,” said Uncle William, hastily. “I run acrost an iceberg once. We was skirmishin’ round up North, in a kind o’ white fog, frosty-like, and cold—cold as blazes; and all of a sudden we was on her—close by her, somewheres, behind the frost. We wa’n’t cold any more. It was about the hottest time I ever knew,” he said thoughtfully.

“What happened?”

Uncle William roused himself. “Well, after a spell we knew she wa’n’t there any more, and we cooled down some. But we wa’n’t real cold—not for much as a day or so.”

The youth had returned to the piano. The audience met him with wild applause, half-way, and he bowed solemnly from his hips. There was a weary look in his face.

Uncle William looked him over critically. “He don’t more ’n half like it, does he?”

The other man coughed a little. Then he laughed out.

Uncle William smiled genially. “I ’ve seen his kind—a good many times. Looks as if they was goin’ to cry when you was feedin’ ’em sugar. They gen’ally like it real well, too.”—He consulted his program.—“Goin’ to do a hammock, is he?”

The hammock began to sway, and Uncle William’s big head rocked softly in time to it. “Some like it,” he said when it was done; “not enough to make you sea-sick—jest easy swingin’.”

The youth had not left the piano. He played “The Bars at Sunset,” and “A Water Lily,” and “The Eagle,” and then the two sea pieces. Uncle William listened with mild attention.

When it was over and the audience had begun to disperse, Sergia came out. She approached Uncle William, scanning his face. “How did you like it?”

“They all done?” he demanded.

“Yes. Did you like the sea pieces?”

“I liked ’em. Yes—I liked ’em.” Uncle William’s tone was moderate.

Sergia was smiling at him a little. “The ‘Depths of the Ocean’—you liked that best, did n’t you?”

Uncle William looked guilty. “I knew you was goin’ to ask me about that one,” he said, “and I ’d meant to listen hard—real hard—to it. I hain’t ever been quite so far down as that, but I thought mebbe I could gauge it. But you see,”—his tone grew confidential and a little apologetic,—“when they got that far along, I could n’t really tell which was which. I wa’n’t plumb sure whether it was the eagle he was doin’ or the dep’hs, and it mixed me up some. I did n’t jest know whether to soar up aloft or dive considabul deep. It kep’ me kind o’ teeterin’ betwixt and between—” He looked at her appealingly, yet with a little twinkle somewhere below.

“I see.” Sergia’s face was dancing. “The names do help.”

“That ’s it,” said Uncle William, gallantly. “If he ’d ’a’ read off the names, or stopped quite a spell between the pieces, I ’d ’a’ done fust-rate. He was playin’ ’em nice. I could see the folks liked ’em.” He smiled at her kindly.

Sergia smiled back. “Yes, they like MacDowell. They think they understand him—when they know which it is.” Her smile had grown frank, like a boy’s. “But which did you like best of all?”

“Of the hull thing?” he demanded. He looked down at the program. “They was all nice,” he said slowly—“real nice. I dunno when I ’ve heard nicer singin’ ’n playin’. But I reckon that one was about the nicest of the lot.” He laid his big thumb on a number.

Sergia and the old gentleman bent to look. It was the Beethoven sonata.

Sergia glanced at the old gentleman. He met the glance, smiling. “A tribute to our hostess,” he said.

“A tribute to Beethoven,” returned Sergia. Then, after a moment, she laughed softly. Sergia was not addicted to MacDowell.