"Jud, they say you have heard Rubinstein play when you were in New
York?"
"I did, in the cool."
"Well, tell us all about it."
"What! me? I might's well tell you about the creation of the world."
"Come, now; no mock modesty. Go ahead."
"Well, sir, he had the biggest, catty-cornerdest pianner you ever
laid your eyes on; somethin' like a distracted billiard table on
three legs. The lid was heisted, and mighty well it was. If it
hadn't, he'd a-tore the intire sides clean out, and scattered them to
the four winds of heaven."
"Played well, did he?"
"You bet he did; but don't interrupt me. When he first sat down he
'peared to keer mighty little 'bout playin', and wish't he hadn't
come. He tweedle-eedled a little on the trible, and twoodle-oodled
some on the bass--just foolin' and boxin' the thing's jaws for bein'
in his way. And I says to the man settin' next to me, s' I, 'What
sort of fool-playin' is that?' And he says, 'Hush!' But presently his
hands began chasin' one 'nother up and down the keys, like a parcel
of rats scamperin' through a garret very swift. Parts of it was
sweet, though, and reminded me of a sugar-squirrel turning the wheel
of a candy-cage.
"'Now,' I says to my neighbour, 'he's a showin' off. He thinks he's
a-doin' of it, but he ain't got no ide, no plan of nothin'. If he'd
play a tune of some kind or other I'd----'
"But my neighbour says 'Hush,' very impatient.
"I was just about to git up and go home, bein' tired of that
foolishness, when I heard a little bird waking away off in the woods,
and callin' sleepy-like to his mate, and I looked up, and I see that
Rubin was beginnin' to take some interest in his business, and I set
down agin. It was the peep of the day. The light came faint from the
east, the breeze blowed gentle and fresh, some birds waked up in the
orchard, then some more in the trees near the house, and all begun
singin' together. People began to stir, and the gal opened the
shutters. Just then the first beam of the sun fell upon the blossoms
a leetle more, and it techt the roses on the bushes, and the next
thing it was the broad day: the sun fairly blazed, the birds sang
like they'd split their throats; all the leaves were movin' and
flashin' diamonds of dew, and the whole wide world was bright and
happy as a king. Seemed to me like there was a good breakfast in
every house in the land, and not a sick child or woman anywhere. It
was a fine mornin'.
"And I says to my neighbour, 'That's music, that is.'
"But he glared at me like he'd cut my throat.
"Presently the wind turned; it began to thicken up and a kind of
thick grey mist came over things; I got low-spirited directly. Then a
silver rain began to fall. I could see the drops touch the ground,
some flashed up like long pearl earrings, and the rest rolled away
like rubies. It was pretty, but melancholy. Then the pearls gathered
themselves into long strands and necklaces, and then they melted into
thin silver streams running between golden gravels, and then the
streams joined each other at the bottom of the hill, and made a brook
that flowed silent, except that you could kinder see music,
especially when the bushes on the bank moved as the music went along
down the valley. I could smell the flowers in the meadow. But the sun
didn't shine nor the birds sing; it was a foggy day, but not cold.
"The most curious thing was the little white angel boy, like you see
in pictures, that run ahead of the music brook, and led it on and on,
away out of the world, where no man ever was--_I_ never was, certain.
I could see the boy just the same as I see you. Then the moonlight
came, without any sunset, and shone on the graveyards, over the wall,
and between the black, sharp-top trees splendid marble houses rose
up, with fine ladies in the lift-up windows, and men that loved 'em,
but never got a-nigh 'em, and played on guitars under the trees, and
made me that miserable I could a-cried, because I wanted to love
somebody, I don't know who, better than the men with guitars did.
"Then the sun went down, it got dark, the wind moaned and wept like a
lost child for its dead mother, and I could a-got up and there and
then preached a better sermon than any I ever listened to. There
wasn't a thing in the world left to live for--not a single thing; and
yet I didn't want the music to stop one bit. It was happier to be
miserable than to be happy without being miserable. I couldn't
understand it. I hung my head and pulled out my han'kerchief, and
blowed my nose well to keep from cryin'. My eyes is weak anyway; I
didn't want anybody to be a-gazin' at me a-snivilin', and it's nobody
business what I do with my nose. It's mine. But several glared at me
as mad as mad. Then, all of a sudden, old Rubin changed his tune. He
rip'd and he rar'd, he tip'd and he tar'd, and he charged like the
grand entry at a circus. 'Peared to me that all the gas in the house
was turned on at once, things got so bright, and I hilt up my head
ready to look at any man in the face, and not afear'd of nothin'. It
was a circus, and a brass band, and a big ball, all going on at the
same time. He lit into them keys like a thousand of bricks; he gave
'em no rest, day nor night; he set every livin' joint in me a-goin',
and not bein' able to stand it no longer, I jumpt, sprang on to my
seat, and jest hollered--
"'Go it, my Rube!'
"Every man, woman, and child in the house riz on me, and shouted,
'Put him out! Put him out!'
"'Put your great-grandmother's grizzly gray greenish cat into the
middle of next month,' I says, 'Tech me if you dare! I paid my money,
and you jest come a-nigh me!'
"With that several policemen ran up, and I had to simmer down. But I
would a fit any fool that laid hands on me, for I was bound to hear
Rube out or die.
"He had changed his tune again. He hopt-light ladies, and tip-toed
fine from end to end of the key-bord. He played soft, and low, and
solemn. I heard the church bells over the hills. The candles in
heaven were lit one by one; I saw the stars rise. The great organ of
eternity began to play from the world's end to the world's end; and
the angels went to prayers.... Then the music changed to water, full
of feeling that couldn't be thought, and began to drop--drip, drop,
drip, drop--clear and sweet, like tears of joy fallin' into a lake of
glory. It was as sweet as a sweetheart sweetn'd with white sugar,
mixed with powdered silver and seed diamonds. It was too sweet. I
tell you, the audience cheered. Rubin, he kinder bowed, like he
wanted to say, 'Much obleeged, but I'd rather you wouldn't interrupt
me.'
"He stopped a minute or two to fetch breath. Then he got mad. He runs
his fingers through his hair, he shoved up his sleeve, he opened his
coat-tails a leetle further, he drug up his stool, he leaned over,
and, sir, he just went for that old pianner. He slapt her face, he
boxed her jaws, he pulled her nose, he pinched her ears, and he
scratched her cheeks till she fairly yelled. She bellowed like a
bull, she bleated like a calf, she howled like a hound, she squealed
like a pig, she shrieked like a rat, and _then_ he wouldn't let her
go. He ran a quarter stretch down the low grounds of the bass, till
he got clean into the bowels of the earth, and you heard thunder
galloping after thunder, thro' the hollows and caves of perdition;
and then he fox-chased his right hand with his left till he got away
out of the treble into the clouds, whar the notes was finer than the
pints of cambric needles, and you couldn't hear nothin' but the
shadders of 'em. And _then_ he wouldn't let the old pianner go. He
for'ard two'd, he cross't over first gentleman, he cross't over first
lady, he balanced two pards, he chassede right and left, back to
your places, he all hands'd aroun', ladies to the right, promenade
all, in and out, here and there, back and forth, up and down,
perpetual motion, doubled, twisted and turned and tacked and tangled
into forty-'leven thousand double bow knots.
"By jinks! It _was_ a mixtery. And then he wouldn't let the old
pianner go. He fecht up his right wing, he fecht up his left wing, he
fecht up his centre, he fecht up his reserves. He fired by file, he
fired by platoons, by company, by regiments, by brigades. He opened
his cannon, siege guns down thar, Napoleons here, twelve-pounders
yonder, big guns, little guns, middle-size guns, round shot, shells,
shrapnels, grape, canister, mortars, mines and magazines, every
livin' battery and bomb a-goin' at the same time. The house trembled,
the lights danced, the walls shuk, the floor come up, the ceilin'
come down, the sky split, the ground rock't--heaven and earth,
creation, sweet potatoes, Moses, ninpences, glory, tenpenny nails, my
Mary Ann, Hallelujah, Sampson in a sim-mon tree, Jerusalem, Tump
Thompson in a tumbler cart, roodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-ruddle-
uddle-uddle-uddle-raddle-addle-addle-addle-riddle-iddle-iddle-iddle-
reedle-eedle-eedle-eedle-p-r-r-r-r-lang! per lang! per lang!
p-r-r-r-r-r lang! Bang!
"With that bang he lifted himself bodily into the air, and he come
down with his knees, his ten fingers, his ten toes, his elbows, and
his nose, striking every single solitary key on that pianner at the
same time. The thing busted and went off into seventeen hundred and
fifty-seven thousand five hundred and forty-two hemi-demi-semi-quavers,
and I know'd no mo'."