AN OPEN DOOR.
WELL, surely there was a chance to teach music to private pupils? No,
if you will credit it, there was not even such a chance! There was less
reasonable explanation for this closed door than the other. Surely,
in the great city, full of would-be musicians, she might have found a
corner! Doubtless she would have done so in time, but it amazed her as
the days went by, and one by one the pupils on whom she had counted
with almost certainty were found to have excellent reasons why they
ought to remain with their present teacher, or why they ought not to
take up music for the present.
In some cases the dilemma was real and the excuse good. In others it
was born simply of fear. Oh, yes, they knew that Miss Benedict was a
brilliant player, there was not her equal in the city; and as for her
voice, it was simply superb; but then it did not follow that a fine
musician was a fine teacher. She had not been educated for a teacher;
that had been the farthest removed from her intention until necessity
forced it upon her. It stood to reason that a girl who had been brought
up in luxury, and had cultivated her musical talent as a passion,
merely for her own pleasure, should know nothing about the principles
of teaching, and have little patience with the drudgery of it. They had
always been warned against broken-down ladies as teachers of anything.
There was a great deal of this feeling; and Claire, as she began to
realize it more, was kept from bitterness because of the honesty of her
nature. She could see that there was truth in these conclusions; and
while she knew that she could give their children such teaching as the
parents might have been glad to get, at any price, she admitted that
they could not know this as she did, and were not to blame for caution.
She was kept from bitterness by one other experience.
There came to see her one evening, a woman who had done plain sewing
for her in the days gone by; whom she had paid liberally and for whom
she had interested herself to secure better paid labor than she had
found her doing. This woman, with a certain confused air, as of one
asking a favor, had come to say that she would take it as a great
thing, if her Fanny could get into Miss Benedict's music class.
Miss Benedict explained kindly that she had no music class, but if she
should form one in the city, it would give her pleasure to count Fanny
as one of her pupils, and the mother could pay for it, if she wished,
in doing a little sewing for them some time, when they should have
sewing again to do. The sentence ended with a sigh. But the caller's
embarrassment increased. She even forgot to thank the lady for her
gracious intention, and looked down at her somewhat faded shawl,
and twisted the fringe of it, and blushed, and tried to stammer out
something. Claire began to suspect that this was but a small part of
her errand, and to be roused to sympathy. Was there anything else she
could do for her in any way, she questioned.
No! oh, no! there was nothing, only would she--would it not be possible
to start a class with her Fanny, and let her pay, not in sewing, but
in money, and the full value of the lessons, too; and here the woman
stopped twisting the fringe of her shawl, and looked up with womanly
dignity. She was doing better, she said; a great deal better than when
Miss Benedict first sought her out. Thanks to her, she had plenty of
sewing, as much as she could do, and of a good, paying kind; and she
had thought--and here the shawl fringe was twisted again--that is, she
had supposed or imagined--well, the long and short of it was, sometimes
all that things wanted was a beginning, and she thought maybe if Miss
Benedict could be so kind as to begin with Fanny, others would come in,
and a good class get started before she knew it.
There was a suspicious quiver of Claire's chin as she listened to this,
but her voice was clear and very gentle as she spoke:
"Tell me frankly, Mrs. Jones, do you think Fanny has a decided talent
for music, which ought to be cultivated? I don't know the child, I
think. Is she a singer?"
Then Mrs. Jones, all unused to subterfuge, and at home in the realm
of frankness, was betrayed at once into admitting that she had never
thought of such a thing as Fanny taking music lessons. No, she didn't
sing: at least, not but very little, and she never said much about
music; what she wanted was to learn to draw, but she, Mrs. Jones, had
thought, as she said--and maybe it was presumption in her to think
so--that what most things needed was to get started. No sooner did
she get started in another kind of sewing, and among another kind
of customers, than work poured in on her faster than she could do,
and she thought Fanny would do maybe to start on. Long before the
conclusion of this sentence the shawl fringe was suffering again.
Claire rose from her seat, and went over and stood before Mrs. Jones,
her voice still clear and controlled:
"I thank you, Mrs. Jones, for your kind thought. So far from being
presumptuous, it was worthy of your warm heart and unselfish nature.
I shall not forget it, and it has done me good. But if I were you, I
would not have Fanny take music lessons, and I would, if I could, give
her drawing lessons. I remember, now, your telling me that she was
always marking up her books with little bits of pictures. She probably
has a good deal of talent in this direction, and not for music; I would
cultivate her talents in the line in which they lie. Miss Parkhurst has
a drawing-class just commencing. She is not very far from your corner,
on Clark street. I hope Fanny can go to her, and if it would be any
convenience to you to pay the bills in sewing, I am quite certain that
Miss Parkhurst would be glad to do it. She was speaking about some
work of the kind only yesterday, and I recommended you to her as one
whom she could trust."
So they dropped once more into their natural characters, Claire the
suggester and helper, and Mrs. Jones the grateful recipient. She went
away thanked and comforted, and convinced that Fanny ought to have a
chance at drawing, since Miss Benedict thought she had a talent.
As for Claire, she went back to her mother with two bright spots
glowing on her cheeks, and knelt down beside her chair, and said:
"Mamma, I have just had the most delicate little bit of thoughtfulness
shown me that I ever received from the world outside, and I'll tell
you one thing it has settled; I mean to accept the first opening, from
whatever source, that will take me away from the city. I am almost sure
there is no work for me in this city."
Yet you are not to suppose that the great world of friends who had
been glad of their recognition forgot them or ignored them. Much less
are you to suppose that the great church--of which Mr. Benedict was
such a prominent part that the projected entertainment for which the
young people had been so nearly ready, missionary though it was, was
indefinitely postponed when he died--forgot them or grew cold. Whatever
the world may do, or whatever solitary individuals in the church may do
under financial ruins, the great heart of the true church beats away
for its own. And bravely they rallied around the widow, and heartily
they tried to be helpful, and were helpful, indeed, so far as warm
words and earnest efforts were concerned.
But they could not make vacancies for Claire in the line in which her
talents fitted her to work. They could not make a strong woman of the
mother, able to shoulder burdens such as are always waiting for strong
shoulders. They could and would have supported them. For a time, at
least, this would have been done joyfully; they longed to do it. They
offered help in all possible delicate ways. The trouble was, this
family would have none of it. Grateful?--oh, yes, but persistent in
gently declining that which was not an absolute necessity.
In the very nature of things, as the days passed, they would be in a
sense forgotten. Claire saw this, and the mother saw it. The rooms they
had taken were very far removed from the old church and the old home
and the old circle of friends. It consumed hours of the day to make the
journey back and forth. Of course, it could not be made often, nor by
many. Of course, the gaps which their changes had made would be filled
in time; it was not reasonable to expect otherwise. Nobody expected it,
but it was very bitter.
And the very first open door that Claire saw was an opportunity
to teach music in a little unpretentious academy, in a little
unpretentious town, away back among the hills, two hundred miles from
the city that had always been her home.
It took talking--much of it--to reconcile the mother and sister to
the thought of a separation. Through all their changes this one had
not been suggested to their minds. They had expected, as a matter of
course, to keep together. But necessity is a wonderful logician. The
bank account was alarmingly small, and growing daily smaller. Even
the unpractical mother and sister could see this. Something must be
done, and here was the open door. Why not enter it at once, instead
of waiting in idleness and suspense through the winter for something
better? Thus argued Claire: "It will not be very easy to leave you,
mamma, as you may well imagine," and here the sensitive chin would
quiver, "but I should feel safe in doing so, for these ugly rooms are
really very conveniently arranged, and Dora would learn to look after
everything that Molly could not do by giving two days of work in a
week. I have made positive arrangements with her for two days, and
she depends upon it; you must not disappoint her. And, mamma, I have
thought of what papa said about us," here the low voice took on a tone
of peculiar tenderness, "perhaps Dora will learn self-reliance if she
is left to shield and care for you; it will be a powerful motive. You
know she leans on me now, naturally."
This was Claire's strongest argument, and, together with the argument
of necessity, prevailed.
Barely four weeks from the "to-morrow" which had contained her last
bright plans, she was installed as music teacher in the plain little
academy building situated in South Plains.
And now I know that I need not even attempt to describe the sinking of
heart with which she moved down the shabby narrow aisle, and seated
herself in the uncushioned pew of the shabby little church on that
first Sabbath morning.
Uncushioned! that was by no means the worst of the pew's failings. The
back was at least four inches lower than it ought to have been, even
for so slight a form as Claire's, and was finished with a moulding that
projected enough to form a decided ridge. Of course, for purpose of
support, the thing was a failure, and, as to appearance, nothing more
awkward in the line of sittings could be imagined.
Fairly seated in this comfortless spot, the homesick girl looked about
her to take in her dreary surroundings. Bare floors, not over clean,
the most offensive looking faded red curtains flapping disconsolately
against the old-fashioned, small-paned soiled windows; a platform,
whose attempts at carpeting represented a large-patterned, soiled
ingrain rag, whose colors, once much too bright for the place, had
faded into disreputable ghosts of their former selves. The whole
effect seemed to Claire by far more dreary than the bare floor of the
aisles. A plain, square, four-legged table, that had not even been
dusted lately, did duty as a pulpit desk, and a plain, wooden-backed,
wooden-seated chair stood behind it. These were the sole attempts
at furnishing. The walls of this desolate sanctuary seemed begrimed
with the smoke of ages; they were festooned with cobwebs, these
furnishing the only attempts at hiding the unsightly cracks. The few
dreary-looking kerosene lamps disposed about the room gave the same
evidence of neglect in their sadly smoked chimneys and general air of
discouragement. However, had Claire but known it, she had cause for
gratitude over the fact that they were not lighted, for they could
prove their unfitness for the place they occupied in a much more
offensive way.
Such, then, in brief, was the scene that greeted her sad eyes that
morning. How utterly homesick and disheartened she was! It was all so
different from the surroundings to which she had all her life been
accustomed! She closed her eyes to hide the rush of tears, and to
think, foolish girl that she was, of that other church miles and miles
away. She could seem to see familiar forms gliding at this moment down
the aisles, whose rich carpets gave back no sound of footfall. How
soft and clear the colors of that carpet were! A suggestion of the
delicately carpeted woods, and the shimmer of sunlight on a summer
day toward the sun setting. She had helped to select that carpet
herself, and she knew that she had an artist's eye for colors and for
harmony. It was not an extravagantly elegant church--as city churches
rank--that one to which her heart went back, but just one of those
exquisitely finished buildings where every bit of color and carving and
design which meet the cultured eye, rests and satisfies. Where the law
of harmony touches the delicately frescoed ceiling, reaches down to the
luxuriously upholstered pews, finds its home in the trailing vines of
the carpet, and breathes out in the roll of the deep-toned organ.
It was in such a church, down such a broad and friendly aisle, that
Claire Benedict had been wont to follow her father and mother on
Sabbath mornings, keeping step to the melody which seemed to steal
of itself from the organ, and fill the lofty room. Can you imagine
something of the contrast?