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 bookmark 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 the 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 that came in with the old lady, and while he was up
the soprano put the shoemaker's 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
shoemaker's wax melts at ninety eight degrees Fahrenheit.
[Illustration: THE TENOR ARRAYED IN ALL HIS GLORY.]
The minister finally got to the amen, and read a hymn, the choir then
coughed and all rose up. The chair that the tenor sat 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, 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.