"You poor child, how lonesome you must feel! So far from your home!"
"Oh, no,--only the length of the store-yard," Grace replied.
"Eh? Brave girl!" said the Doctor. "That's the sort of spirit to have
in a new country, if you want to be happy. Well, I can't stop more
than a minute,--I've a patient to see in the back street. I understand
you're stopping at the hotel, and as, for the reputation of the town,
we shouldn't like you to get a violent attack of indigestion the first
day, we came down to ask you to dine with us at twelve. Mrs. Somerton
can ride up now and visit with my wife, and her husband can come up
when he will. Caleb can give him the direction."
"So kind of you!" murmured Grace, and Philip said:--
"I shall be under everlasting obligations to you for giving my wife a
view of some better interior than that of a store or that dismal hotel,
but I daren't leave to-day. Caleb has arranged for several men to see
me."
"Well, well, I'll catch you some other day," said the Doctor. "I must
be going; hope you'll find business as brisk as I do. You may be sure
that Mrs. Taggess will take good care of your wife, and see that she
gets safely back. Good day. I'll drop in once in a while. Hope to know
you better. I make no charge for social calls."
So it came to pass that within ten minutes Philip was furnishing his
new home with the contents of the old. The possible contents of a New
York flat for two are small, at best; yet as each bit of furniture,
upholstery, and bric-à-brac was placed in position in the Jethro
Somerton house, the plain rooms looked less bare, so Philip was
correspondingly elated. True, he had to use ordinary iron nails to
hang his pictures, and was in desperation for some moments for lack
of rods for portières and curtains, but he supplied their places with
rake-handles from the store and rested them in meat-hooks. He worked
so long, and hurried so often into the store for one makeshift after
another, that Caleb became excited and peered through the windows of
the store's back room at his first opportunity, just in time to see the
upright piano moved in. Unable to endure the strain of curiosity any
longer, he quickly devised an excuse, in the shape of a cup of coffee
and some buttered toast, all made at the stove in the back room of the
store. Coaxing a trustworthy but lounging customer to "mind store" for
him a minute or two, Caleb put the refreshments in a covered box and
timed himself to meet Philip as the latter emerged from the warehouse
with an armful of books.
"Didn't want to disturb you, but seein' that you let the hotel
dinner-hour pass an' was workin' hard, I thought mebbe a little snack"
(here Caleb lifted the lid of the box) "'d find its way to the right
place."
"Mr. Wright, you're a trump! Would you mind bringing it into the house
for me, my hands being full?"
"Don't want to intrude."
"Nonsense! Aren't we friends? If not, we're going to be. Besides, I
really want some one to rejoice with me over the surprise I'm going to
give my wife. Come right in. Drop the box on this table."
"Well!" exclaimed Caleb, after a long suspiration, "I reckon I done
that just in time! A second more, an' I'd ha' dropped the hull thing
on this carpet--or is it a shawl? Why, 'taint the same place at all!
Je-ru-salem! What would your Uncle Jethro say if he could look in a
minute? Reckon he'd want to come back an' stay. I dunno's I ought to
have said that, though, for I've always b'lieved he was among the
saved, an' of course your house ain't better'n heaven, but--"
"But 'twill be heaven to my wife and me," said Philip.
"Well, I reckon homes was invented 'specially to prepare folks for
heaven,--or t'other place, 'cordin' to the folks."
"Come into the parlor," said Philip, toast and coffee in hand. For a
moment or two Caleb stood speechless in the doorway; then he said:--
"Je-ru-salem! This reminds me to take off my hat. Why, I s'posed you
folks wasn't over-an'-above well fixed in the city, but this is a
palace!"
"Not quite," said Philip, although delighted by Caleb's comments.
"Thousands of quiet young couples in New York have prettier parlors
than this."
"I want to know!" Then Caleb sighed. "I reckon that's why young people
that go there from the country never come home again. I've knowed a
lot of 'em that I'd like to see once more. Hello! I reckon that's a
pianner; I've seen pictures of 'em in advertisements. A firm in the
city once wanted your uncle to take the county agency for pianners."
Caleb laughed almost convulsively as he continued, "Ye ort to have seen
Jethro's face when he read that letter!"
"Do you mean to say that there are no pianos in this county?" asked
Philip.
"I just do. But there once was an organ. Squire Pease, out in Hick'ry
Township, bought one two or three years ago for his gals. He was
runnin' for sheriff then, an' thought somethin' so new an' startlin'
might look like a sign of public spirit, an' draw him some votes. But
somehow his gals didn't get the hang of it, an' the noises it made
always set visitors' dogs to howlin', an' to tryin' to get into the
house an' kill the varmint, whatever it was, an' Pease's dogs tried to
down the visitors' dogs, an' that made bad feelin'; so Pease traded the
organ to a pedler for a patent corn-planter, an' he didn't get 'lected
sheriff, either. I allers reckoned that ef anybody'd knowed how to play
on it, that organ might ha' been a means of grace in these parts, for
I've knowed a nigger's fiddle to stop a drunken fight that was too much
for the sheriff an' his posse." Caleb looked the piano over as if it
were a horse on sale, and continued:--
"Don't seem to work with a crank."
"Oh, no," replied Philip, placing a chair in front of the instrument
and seating himself. "This is the method." He indulged in two or three
"runs," and then, with his heart on Grace, he dashed into the music
dearest to him and his wife--perhaps because it was not played at their
own very quiet marriage,--the Mendelssohn Wedding March.
"Je-ru-salem!" exclaimed Caleb. "That's a hair-lifter! What a blessin'
such a machine must be to a man that knows the tunes!"
Rightly construing this remark as an indication that Caleb longed to
hear music with which he was acquainted, Philip searched his memory for
familiar music of the days when he was a country boy, and which would
therefore be recognized by Caleb. Suddenly he recalled an air very dear
to several religious denominations, although it has been dropped from
almost all modern hymnals, probably because its vivacity, repetitions,
and its inevitable suggestion of runs and variations had made it
seem absolutely indecorous to ears that were fastidious as well as
religious. Philip had heard it played (by request) as a quick march, by
a famous brass band, at the return of troops from a soldier's funeral
in New York; so, after playing a few bars of it softly, he tried to
recall and imitate the march effect. He succeeded so well that soon he
was surprised to see Caleb himself, an ex-soldier, striding to and fro,
singing the hymn beginning:--
"Am I a soldier of the Cross?"