THE CONCERT
"'Flow gently sweet Afton among thy green braes," caroled Betty. She was
picking out the accompaniment with her first finger on the Assembly Hall
piano, one stormy afternoon, for the benefit of Angela and Polly. They
were trying to compose a Senior class song to Seddon Hall.
"'Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise.'"
"That ought to do," she said, abruptly swinging around on the piano
stool to face them.
"The rhythm is good and I love the tune."
Polly and Angela considered for a moment.
"It is rather nice," Polly agreed, "if we can only find words to fit
it."
"That's easy, use the same idea as the song," Betty suggested.
"Supplement Hudson for Afton, and--"
"Oh, Bet, how can you?" Angela's poetic taste objected. "Imagine a
school song that began 'Flow gently sweet Hudson.' I suppose you'd go
on with: 'Among thy sign bordered banks.' It would never do, would it,
Polly?"
Polly was laughing too hard to reply at once.
"I don't know; it would be original, anyway, Ange," she said at last.
"And you know our class has always been original," Betty reminded her.
"There's a difference between originality and silly nonsense, but I
suppose it's too much to expect either of you to appreciate it," Angela
said, with dignity.
Betty played a loud chord on the piano.
"Ange, when you're crushing, I always feel like running away," she said,
timidly. "However, I still protest that there's nothing wrong with
telling the Hudson to flow gently," she added. "Of course, I'm open to
argument."
Angela was exasperated. The rest of the Senior class had appointed these
three to write the class song, over a week ago. It had to be ready
before the Senior concert. This was as far as they had gotten.
Christmas vacation began the next week, and the concert was to be the
night before. Angela felt, that given a piece of paper, a pencil and a
quiet place, she could compose a fitting song, but with Betty and Polly
saying ridiculous things every minute to make her laugh, she couldn't
think of even one sensible line.
"You can't use the words, gently and sweet, in relation to a mighty
river like the Hudson." She referred to Betty's question. "You might as
well call it a cute little brook," she finished in disgust.
"Why, Angela! I do believe you're cross." Polly looked up in sudden
surprise at the irritable note in Angela's voice. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing but a cold in my head and pages of Virgil translations," Angela
replied, woefully. "You and Betty won't be serious for a minute. It'll
mean I have to sit up the night before the concert with a wet towel
around my head and write a song that won't be any good."
"Polly, we ought to be ashamed. Angela's right," Betty said with sudden
seriousness. "From this minute on, I promise to behave," she added
solemnly, "and agree to anything you say. We'll discard 'Flow gently
sweet Hudson,' as no good, and proceed."
"How about starting 'On Majestic Hudson's Banks?'" suggested Polly.
"We can't use majestic, it's too long and grand's a horrid word." Angela
considered, frowning.
"Well, leave out the adjective and say:
"On Hudson's bank
Stands fair Seddon Hall--
"That's all right, listen, I'll play it."
They sang the words to Betty's accompaniment.
"Truth, honor and joy
Is her message to all."
Angela added inspired:
"Her daughters are loyal"--
Betty would have gone on, but Polly stopped her.
"I won't agree to that, every class song I ever heard, said exactly the
same thing," she protested. "Let's get something about happiness."
"Hardly more original." Betty laughed, but Angela interrupted.
"I know what Poll means. How's this?"
"There's no limit to"--
"Slang," Polly said abruptly.
"It isn't really."
"Yes, it is. 'Common usage often converts the most ordinary phrase into
slang or colloquialism. The writer should take care to avoid them,'"
Betty quoted. "Try limitless depth."
"All right, that's better still," Angela agreed.
"There's a limitless depth
To her bounteous store."
"Oh, marvelous!" Polly exclaimed. "What rhymes with store--paw, law,
door, war, more-- More, that's it."
"Each year she gives of--her--her-- We can't use bounty again. Give me a
word somebody."
"Riches," Betty suggested.
"Of her riches the more.
"Oh, that's perfect!"
Angela didn't exactly agree, but she didn't say so. Instead she gave
them the verse she had just composed.
"Each daughter has shared
In the wealth of her days,
United we join now
In singing her praise."
"Jemima, one of us has a brilliant mind!" Betty exclaimed. "That's too
good to forget. Wait till I find a pencil."
There was one in the pocket of her sailor suit and she wrote the words
down on the back of a sheet of music.
"Why, that's three verses," she said as she finished with a flourish.
"Let's add one more!" Polly suggested, "with Seddon Hall in it and
something about leaving like this:
"And when the time comes"--
"Yes, I know," Betty interrupted eagerly.
"When we must depart"--
"That's good, but I like each, better than we," Polly said critically.
"And when the time comes
When each must depart"
"Finish it for us, Ange."
"The memory of Seddon Hall
Will remain in our hearts."
Angela chanted promptly. "Seddon Hall is rather too long for the line
but I guess it will do."
"Of course it will!" Polly assured her, as Betty scribbled hurriedly.
"We'll claim poetic license. I'm sure it's worth it. Let's go find the
girls, and read it to them."
"Where are they?" Angela inquired. "I think the Dorothys have gone to
the village."
"Evelin's in the gym, and Mildred's in the Infirmary," Betty said.
"Where's Lo?"
"In the studio." Polly closed the lid of the piano, preparatory to
leaving.
"Well, we can get her at any rate," Betty said. "Come on."
Fanny was in the studio with Lois, when they got there. Ever since
Polly's promise of friendship, she had been with one or the other of the
three girls. Even Angela had taken an interest in her, now and then.
As the friendship grew, and the girls found that she "filled the want
that the year lacked," as Betty put it drolly:
"Fanny's so nice and such a relief just because she isn't 'us.'" By this
she probably meant that the little Southerner would always see things
differently from the three who, though totally different, thought and
looked at things in pretty much the same way.
"We've finished the song," Polly announced, proudly, as they entered the
studio.
Lois looked up from her drawing board.
"I've nearly finished the poster. How do you like it?"
The girls crowded around her, to admire a crayon sketch of a group of
wakes dressed in costume, singing. There was a house like Ann Hathaway's
cottage in the background, and a big yellow moon just rising behind a
hill.
They were delighted with it.
"Just right, Lo!" Polly insisted. "It ought to be English because all
the ballads we're going to sing are early English--'Good King Wenceslas
Looked Out' and 'God rest ye, Merry Gentlemen,'--and the rest."
"Oh! I adore those old things," Fanny said eagerly. "We always sing them
down home, every year."
"Read the song," Lois demanded. "I'm crazy to hear it."
"Hadn't I better go?" Fanny offered. "I'm not a Senior."
"Oh, never mind," Polly said, "you won't tell."
"Just the same, I'll go. Will you all have tea in my room this
afternoon? I've just gotten a box of cookies from down home," she asked
at the door.
"We will," Betty replied without hesitation. "Tea and homemade cookies
are the one thing I need after my labors."
The others accepted with equal enthusiasm and Fanny left to prepare for
them.
When she had gone, Betty seated herself on the window seat and referred
to the piece of music.
"Here's the song entire," she announced. "We all helped with, but most
of it is Angela's."
"I knew that," Lois said with a grin, but Betty ignored the
interruption.
"The tune is 'Flow gently Sweet Afton' and the song is dedicated to
Seddon Hall, with apologies to Robert Burns. Here it is," and she read:
"On Hudson's bank
Stands fair Seddon Hall.
Truth, honor and joy
Is her message to all."
"That's the first verse."
"Go on," Lois prompted, "I like it."
"Each daughter has shared
In the wealth of her days.
United, we join
In singing her praise.
"There's a limitless depth
To her bounteous store,
And yearly she gives
Of her riches the more.
"And when the time comes
When each must depart,
The memory of Seddon Hall
Will remain in our heart."
"Somehow it sounds better when it's sung," Betty said, wonderingly. The
poem was not quite up to her expectations, but Lois' enthusiasm banished
all doubts.
"I think it's great, and I know the others will too. Isn't it a relief
to have it finished? All my poster needs now is the printing, and Maud's
promised to do it for me in Old English Script."
"Fine, but put your things away, and let's go over to Fannie's room.
Those cakes call." Betty smacked her lips in anticipation as she helped
Lois collect her materials.
Fanny was singing as they entered Junior Mansions. It was an old Negro
melody, and the crooning notes were soft and beautiful.
"Why I didn't know Fanny could sing," Polly exclaimed in surprise, and
the rest stopped to listen.
"'Swing low, sweet chariot-- I'se comin' for to carry you home'"--
The music ended abruptly, and they heard the rattle of the cups.
"Why didn't you ever tell us you had a beautiful voice?" demanded Betty
between cookies, a few minutes later. "You ought to be studying."
"The very idea!" Fanny laughed in reply.
"Hasn't anybody ever told you you had before?" Lois asked wonderingly.
But Fanny shook her head.
"I reckon they none of them ever had time to pay any attention to me,"
she said. "They were always busy listening to my cousin."
"Which cousin?" Polly inquired.
"Caroline," Fanny said. "We were brought up together, and when we were
little, Mammy Jones used to say: 'Honey, the only way for to do, if you
wants to sing, is to swaller a hummin' bird.' One day Caroline came in
and said 'she had swallowed one.' Well, later, she did develop a lovely
voice you know, and poor mammy believed till the day she died that 'Miss
Carrie had done swallered a hummin' bird.'" The girls were delighted.
"How rare," Betty chuckled.
"Bless her old heart," Polly added. "Where's Caroline now?"
"In Washington. She's studying both voice and piano."
"I don't believe her voice is any sweeter than yours," Lois insisted.
Fanny shook her head.
"Maybe not, but everybody thinks so, so there you are. Carrie just
naturally does get ahead of me in everything. I told you she cut me out
with one of my beaux," she added, laughing at herself. "A thing she
could never have done two months before."
Three days later the discovery of Fannie's voice proved of much more
importance than any of the girls had foreseen. Evelin Hatfield, who had
a very clear soprano voice, and who had been cast for the solo parts in
the concert, came down with tonsilitis and had to go to the Infirmary.
The Seniors met in English room to discuss finding a substitute, after
Miss King had assured them that there was no chance of Evelin's
immediate recovery.
"Of course it's a Senior concert, and as long as I can remember no one
has ever helped them out, but our class is hopeless," Lois said.
"Evelin's was the only real voice, except yours, Ange, and you're
already cast for the King. Do you think you could take the page's part
in 'Good King Wenceslas,' Dot?" she asked Dorothy Lansing.
"Goodness! No! Why, I'd be scared to death," she answered hastily.
"Then there's nothing to do, but to ask one of the Juniors to help us,"
Polly said decidedly. "She could leave the platform when we sang our
song."
The rest agreed. "But who?" Helen inquired.
"Fanny Gerard has a sweet voice, and I know she knows the carols," Betty
said, "and she's a Junior."
There was a little discussion before Fanny was selected, but in the end
Betty carried her point.
The few days before the musical were taken up with rehearsals. The party
was to be very informal--just something to do on the last night. The
Seniors sang carols in costumes and later on served light refreshments.
Fanny was delighted to sing. The day of the concert she went out with
Polly and Lois to get evergreen branches to decorate the hall with, and
between them they turned the platform into a veritable forest.
By seven-thirty the school was assembled, and at a quarter to eight the
Seniors entered. They marched around the room and up to the platform
singing: "God rest ye, Merry Gentlemen." Fanny's clear voice was so
above the others that the girls and teachers began to whisper among
themselves. There was a lull of expectancy as they began "Good King
Wenceslas looked out on the feast of Stephan."
Angela, who was dressed as the King, sang her part:
"Haste thee, page, and stand by me,
If thou knowest it telling,
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where, and what, his dwelling?"
With so much expression that the deficiency of her voice was overlooked.
But it was Fanny, in her green page suit that was to score the triumph
of the evening. She stepped out a little from the others, when her turn
came to answer the King.
"Sire, he lives a good league hence--
Underneath the mountain.
Right beyond the forest fence
By Saint Agnes' fountain."
Her notes were full and beautiful, and the sympathetic quality of her
voice enchanted her audience. They broke out into enthusiastic applause.
"I told you so," Betty whispered as Fanny bowed her thanks.
The rest of the evening may be truly said to have belonged to Fanny.
Even the Seniors' class song was hurriedly applauded, so that she might
return to the platform.
The girls made her sit down at the piano when the carols were over, and
sing them song after song.
At nine o'clock, Betty insisted that she stop long enough to have some
refreshments.
"You all don't really think I can sing, do you?" she asked seriously,
when they had joined Polly and Lois and Angela.
"Of course we do," everybody told her with enthusiasm.
"You've swallowed a bird all right," Betty laughed.
Fanny shook her head. So much praise was embarrassing.
"Maybe I did," she said shyly, "but it was probably nothing but a poor
no account sparrow."