They 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strains of violin-bows laid across strings and quickly withdrawn.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 couldn’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 didn’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 doesn’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 didn’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 isn’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, didn’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 couldn’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 didn’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.