You may organize a church choir and think you have got it down fine, and
that every member of it is pious and full of true goodness, and in such
a moment as you think not you will find that one or more of them are
full of the old Harry, and it will break out when you least expect it.
There is no more beautiful sight to the student of nature than a church
choir. To see the members sitting together, demure, devoted and pious
looking, you think that there is never a thought enters their mind that
is not connected with singing anthems, but sometimes you get left.
There is one church choir in Milwaukee that is about as near perfect
as a choir can be. It has been organized for a long time, and has never
quarreled, and the congregation swears by it. When the choir strikes a
devotional attitude it is enough to make an ordinary christian think
of the angel band above, only the male singers wear whiskers, and the
females wear fashionable clothes.
You would not think that this choir played tricks on each other during
the sermon, but sometimes they do. The choir is furnished with the
numbers of the hymns that are to be sung, by the minister, and they put
a book mark in the book at the proper place. One morning they all got up
to sing, when the soprano turned pale as an ace of spades dropped out of
her hymn book, the alto nearly fainted when a queen of hearts dropped at
her feet, and the rest of the pack was distributed around in the other
books. They laid it onto the tenor, but he swore, while the minister was
preaching, that he didn't know one card from another.
One morning last summer, after the tenor had been playing tricks
all Spring on the rest of the choir, the soprano brought a chunk of
shoemaker's wax to church. The tenor was arrayed like Solomon, in all
his glory, with white pants, and a Seymour coat. The tenor got up to see
who the girl was who came in with the old lady, and while he was up the
soprano put the shoemakers' wax on the chair, and the tenor sat down
on it. They all saw it, and they waited for the result. It was an awful
long prayer, and the church was hot, the tenor was no iceberg himself,
and shoemakers' wax melts at ninety-eight degrees Fahrenheit.
The minister finally got to the amen, and read a hymn, the choir coughed
and all rose up. The chair that the tenor was in stuck to him like a
brother, and came right along and nearly broke his suspenders. It was
the tenor to bat, and as the great organ struck up he pushed the chair
off of his person, looked around to see if he had saved his pants, and
began to sing, and the rest of the choir came near bursting. The tenor
was called out on three strikes by the umpire, and the alto had to sail
in, and while she was singing the tenor began to feel of first base to
see what was the matter. When he got his hand on the shoemaker's warm
wax his heart smote him, and he looked daggers at the soprano, but she
put on a pious look and got her mouth ready to sing “Hold the Fort.”
Well, the tenor sat down on a white handkerchief before he went home,
and he got home without anybody seeing him, and he has been, as the old
saying is, “laying” for the soprano ever since to get even.
It is customary in all first-class choirs for the male singers to
furnish candy for the lady singers, and the other day the tenor went
to a candy factory and had a peppermint lozenger made with about half a
teaspoonful of cayenne pepper in the centre of it. On Christmas he took
his lozenger to church and concluded to get even with the soprano if he
died for it.
Candy had been passed around, and just before the hymn was given out
in which the soprano was to sing a solo, “Nearer My God to Thee,” the
wicked wretch gave her the loaded lozenger. She put it in her mouth and
nibbed off the edges, and was rolling it as a sweet morsel under her
tongue, when the organ struck up and they all arose. While the choir was
skirmishing on the first part of the verse and getting scored up for the
solo, she chewed what was left of the candy and swallowed it.
Well, if a democratic torch-light procession had marched unbidden down
her throat she couldn't have been any more astonished. She leaned over
to pick up her handkerchief and spit the candy out, but there was enough
pepper left around the selvage of her mouth to have pickled a peck of
chow-chow.
It was her turn to sing, and as she rose and took the book, her eyes
filled with tears, her voice trembled, her face was as red as a spanked
lobster, and the way she sung that old hymn was a caution. With a sweet
tremulo she sung, “A Charge to Keep I Have,” and the congregation was
almost melted to tears.
As she stopped, while the organist got in a little work, she turned her
head, opened her mouth and blew out her breath with a “whoosh,” to cool
her mouth. The audience saw her wipe a tear away, but did not hear the
sound of her voice as she “whooshed.” She wiped out some of the pepper
with her handkerchief and sang the other verses with a good deal of
fervor, and the choir sat down, all of the members looking at the
soprano.
She called for water. The noble tenor went and got it for her, and after
she had drank a couple of quarts, she whispered to him: “Young man, I
will get even with you for that peppermint candy if I have to live a
thousand years, and don't you forget it,” and then they all sat down
and looked pious, while the minister preached a most beautiful sermon
on “Faith.” We expect that tenor will be blowed through the roof some
Sunday morning, and the congregation will wonder what he is in such a
hurry for.