The story which is published herewith under the title of
"The First Piano in Camp" originally appeared several years
ago in the Virginia City _Chronicle_, and was then named "A
Christmas Carol." Its literary merit, quaint humor, and
pathos were at once recognized, and in the course of the
next six months it was republished in scores of newspapers
throughout the country. It next reached England, and from
there its popularity spread to the Continent, with the
result that it was translated into nearly every European
language.
In several cases newspapers in reprinting the story failed
to give the name of the author, and, believing that it had
originally been published anonymously, a number of persons
asserted that it had been written by them. These claims were
quickly disproved, however, and in the numerous collections
of specimens of American humor in which it now appears due
credit is given to Sam Davis, who was brought up in the same
atmosphere which gave life to the genius of Bret Harte and
Mark Twain. Mr. Davis was for several years editor of the
Virginia City _Enterprise_ and the Virginia City
_Chronicle_. He is now the State Comptroller of Nevada and
the proprietor and editor of the Carson _Appeal_.
"The First Piano in Camp," as here printed, is taken from
"Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor," edited by
Thomas L. Masson, and published by Doubleday, Page & Co.
In 1858--it might have been five years earlier or later; this is not a
history for the public schools--there was a little camp about ten miles
from Pioche, occupied by upward of three hundred miners, every one of whom
might have packed his prospecting implements and left for more inviting
fields any time before sunset.
When the day was over, these men did not rest from their labors, like
honest New England agriculturists, but sang, danced, gambled, and shot one
another, as the mood seized them.
One evening the report spread along the main street (which was the only
street) that three men had been killed at Silver Reef and that the bodies
were coming in. Presently a lumbering old conveyance labored up the hill,
drawn by a couple of horses well worn out with their pull. The cart
contained a good-sized box, and no sooner did its outlines become visible,
through the glimmer of a stray light, than it began to affect the idlers.
Death always enforces respect, and even though no one had caught sight of
the remains, the crowd gradually became subdued, and when the horses came
to a standstill the cart was immediately surrounded. The driver, however,
was not in the least impressed with the solemnity of his commission.
"All there?" asked one.
"Haven't examined. Guess so."
The driver filled his pipe and lighted it as he continued:
"Wish the bones and load had gone over the grade!"
A man who had been looking on stepped up to the teamster at once.
"I don't know who you have in that box, but if they happen to be any
friends of mine I'll lay you alongside."
"We can mighty soon see," said the teamster coolly. "Just burst the lid
off, and if they happen to be the men you want, I'm here."
The two looked at each other for a moment, and then the crowd gathered a
little closer, anticipating trouble.
"I believe that dead men are entitled to good treatment, and when you talk
about hoping to see corpses go over a bank all I have to say is that it
will be better for you if the late lamented ain't my friends."
"We'll open the box. I don't take back what I've said, and if my language
don't suit your ways of thinking, I guess I can stand it."
With these words the teamster began to pry up the lid. He got a board off,
and then pulled out some rags. A strip of something dark, like rosewood,
presented itself.
"Eastern coffins, by thunder!" said several, and the crowd looked quite
astonished.
Some more boards flew up, and the man who was ready to defend his friend's
memory shifted his weapon a little. The cool manner of the teamster had so
irritated him that he had made up his mind to pull his weapon at the first
sight of the dead, even if the deceased was his worst and oldest enemy.
Presently the whole of the box-cover was off, and the teamster, clearing
away the packing, revealed to the astonished group the top of something
which puzzled all alike.
"Boys," said he, "this is a pianner."
A general shout of laughter went up, and the man who had been so anxious
to enforce respect for the dead muttered something about feeling dry, and
the keeper of the nearest bar was several ounces better off by the time
the boys had given the joke due attention.
Had a dozen dead men been in the box their presence in the camp could not
have occasioned half the excitement that the arrival of that lonely piano
caused. But the next morning it was known that the instrument was to grace
a hurdy-gurdy saloon, owned by Tom Goskin, the leading gambler in the
place. It took nearly a week to get this wonder on its legs, and the owner
was the proudest individual in the State. It rose gradually from a
recumbent to an upright position amid a confusion of tongues, after the
manner of the Tower of Babel.
Of course, everybody knew just how such an instrument should be put up.
One knew where the "off hind leg" should go, and another was posted on the
"front piece."
Scores of men came to the place every day to assist.
"I'll put the bones in good order."
"If you want the wires tuned up, I'm the boy."
"I've got music to feed it for a month."
Another brought a pair of blankets for a cover, and all took the liveliest
interest in it. It was at last in a condition for business.
"It's been showin' its teeth all the week. We'd like to have it spit out
something."
Alas! there wasn't a man to be found who could play upon the instrument.
Goskin began to realize that he had a losing speculation on his hands. He
had a fiddler, and a Mexican who thrummed a guitar. A pianist would have
made his orchestra complete. One day a three-card-monte player told a
friend confidentially that he could "knock any amount of music out of the
piano, if he only had it alone a few hours to get his hand in." This
report spread about the camp, but on being questioned he vowed that he
didn't know a note of music. It was noted, however, as a suspicious
circumstance, that he often hung about the instrument and looked upon it
longingly, like a hungry man gloating over a beef-steak in a restaurant
window. There was no doubt but that this man had music in his soul,
perhaps in his finger-ends, but did not dare to make trial of his strength
after the rules of harmony had suffered so many years of neglect. So the
fiddler kept on with his jigs, and the greasy Mexican pawed his discordant
guitar, but no man had the nerve to touch the piano. There were doubtless
scores of men in the camp who would have given ten ounces of gold-dust to
have been half an hour alone with it, but every man's nerve shrank from
the jeers which the crowd would shower upon him should his first attempt
prove a failure. It got to be generally understood that the hand which
first essayed to draw music from the keys must not slouch its work.
* * * * *
It was Christmas eve, and Goskin, according to his custom, had decorated
his gambling-hell with sprigs of mountain cedar and a shrub whose crimson
berries did not seem a bad imitation of English holly. The piano was
covered with evergreens, and all that was wanting to completely fill the
cup of Goskin's contentment was a man to play the instrument.
"Christmas night, and no piano-pounder," he said. "This is a nice country
for a Christian to live in."
Getting a piece of paper, he scrawled:
$20 REWARD
TO A COMPETENT PIANO PLAYER
This he stuck up on the music-rack, and though the inscription glared at
the frequenters of the room until midnight, it failed to draw any musician
from his shell.
So the merrymaking went on; the hilarity grew apace. Men danced and sang
to the music of the squeaky fiddle and worn-out guitar as the jolly crowd
within tried to drown the howling of the storm without. Suddenly they
became aware of the presence of a white-haired man, crouching near the
fireplace. His garments--such as were left--were wet with melting snow,
and he had a half-starved, half-crazed expression. He held his thin,
trembling hands toward the fire, and the light of the blazing wood made
them almost transparent. He looked about him once in a while as if in
search of something, and his presence cast such a chill over the place
that gradually the sound of the revelry was hushed, and it seemed that
this waif of the storm had brought in with him all the gloom and coldness
of the warring elements. Goskin, mixing up a cup of hot egg-nogg, advanced
and remarked cheerily:
"Here, stranger, brace up! This is the real stuff."
The man drained the cup, smacked his lips, and seemed more at home.
"Been prospecting, eh? Out in the mountains--caught in the storm? Lively
night, this!"
"Pretty bad," said the man.
"Must feel pretty dry?"
The man looked at his streaming clothes and laughed, as if Goskin's remark
was a sarcasm.
"How long out?"
"Four days."
"Hungry?"
The man rose up, and, walking over to the lunch-counter, fell to work upon
some roast bear, devouring it as any wild animal would have done. As meat
and drink and warmth began to permeate the stranger he seemed to expand
and lighten up. His features lost their pallor, and he grew more and more
content with the idea that he was not in the grave. As he underwent these
changes the people about him got merrier and happier, and threw off the
temporary feeling of depression which he had laid upon them.
"Do you always have your place decorated like this?" he finally asked of
Goskin.
"This is Christmas eve," was the reply.
The stranger was startled.
"December 24, sure enough."
"That's the way I put it up, pard."
"When I was in England I always kept Christmas. But I had forgotten that
this was the night. I've been wandering about in the mountains until I've
lost track of the feasts of the Church."
Presently his eye fell upon the piano.
"Where's the player?" he asked.
"Never had any," said Goskin, blushing at the expression.
"I used to play when I was young."
Goskin almost fainted at the admission.
"Stranger, do tackle it, and give us a tune! Nary man in this camp ever
had the nerve to wrestle with that music-box." His pulse beat faster, for
he feared that the man would refuse.
"I'll do the best I can," he said.
There was no stool, but seizing a candle-box, he drew it up and seated
himself before the instrument. It only required a few seconds for a hush
to come over the room.
"That old coon is going to give the thing a rattle."
The sight of a man at the piano was something so unusual that even the
faro-dealer, who was about to take in a fifty-dollar bet on the tray,
paused and did not reach for the money. Men stopped drinking, with the
glasses at their lips. Conversation appeared to have been struck with a
sort of paralysis, and cards were no longer shuffled.
The old man brushed back his long white locks, looked up to the ceiling,
half closed his eyes, and in a mystic sort of reverie passed his fingers
over the keys. He touched but a single note, yet the sound thrilled the
room. It was the key to his improvisation, and as he wove his cords
together the music laid its spell upon every ear and heart. He felt his
way along the keys like a man treading uncertain paths, but he gained
confidence as he progressed, and presently bent to his work like a master.
The instrument was not in exact tune, but the ears of his audience did not
detect anything radically wrong. They heard a succession of grand chords,
a suggestion of paradise, melodies here and there, and it was enough.
"See him counter with his left!" said an old rough, enraptured.
"He calls the turn every time on the upper end of the board," responded a
man with a stack of chips in his hand.
The player wandered off into the old ballads they had heard at home. All
the sad and melancholy and touching songs, that came up like dreams of
childhood, this unknown player drew from the keys. His hands kneaded their
hearts like dough and squeezed out tears as from a wet sponge.
As the strains flowed one upon the other, the listeners saw their homes of
the long ago reared again; they were playing once more where the
apple-blossoms sank through the soft air to join the violets on the green
turf of the old New England States; they saw the glories of the Wisconsin
maples and the haze of the Indian summer blending their hues together;
they recalled the heather of Scottish hills, the white cliffs of Britain,
and heard the sullen roar of the sea, as it beat upon their memories,
vaguely. Then came all the old Christmas carols, such as they had sung in
church thirty years before; the subtle music that brings up the glimmer of
wax tapers, the solemn shrines, the evergreen, holly, mistletoe, and
surpliced choirs. Then the remorseless performer planted his final stab in
every heart with "Home, Sweet Home."
When the player ceased the crowd slunk away from him. There was no more
revelry or devilment left in his audience. Each man wanted to sneak off
to his cabin and write the old folks a letter. The day was breaking as the
last man left the place, and the player, with his head on the piano, fell
asleep.
"I say, pard," said Goskin, "don't you want a little rest?"
"I feel tired," the old man said. "Perhaps you'll let me rest here for the
matter of a day or so."
He walked behind the bar, where some old blankets were lying, and
stretched himself upon them.
"I feel pretty sick. I guess I won't last long. I've got a brother down in
the ravine--his name's Driscoll. He don't know I'm here. Can you get him
before morning? I'd like to see his face once before I die."
Goskin started up at the mention of the name. He knew Driscoll well.
"He your brother? I'll have him here in half an hour."
As Goskin dashed out into the storm the musician pressed his hand to his
side and groaned. Goskin heard the word "Hurry!" and sped down the ravine
to Driscoll's cabin. It was quite light in the room when the two men
returned. Driscoll was pale as death.
"My God! I hope he's alive! I wronged him when we lived in England, twenty
years ago."
They saw the old man had drawn the blankets over his face. The two stood a
moment, awed by the thought that he might be dead. Goskin lifted the
blanket and pulled it down, astonished. There was no one there!
"Gone!" cried Driscoll wildly.
"Gone!" echoed Goskin, pulling out his cash-drawer. "Ten thousand dollars
in the sack, and the Lord knows how much loose change in the drawer!"
The next day the boys got out, followed a horse's track through the snow,
and lost them in the trail leading toward Pioche.
There was a man missing from the camp. It was the three-card-monte man,
who used to deny pointblank that he could play the scale. One day they
found a wig of white hair, and called to mind how the "stranger" had
pushed those locks back when he looked toward the ceiling for inspiration
on the night of December 24, 1858.