MOTHER’S KNEE
Archie Moffam’s connection with that devastatingly popular ballad,
“Mother’s Knee,” was one to which he always looked back later with a
certain pride. “Mother’s Knee,” it will be remembered, went through the
world like a pestilence. Scots elders hummed it on their way to kirk;
cannibals crooned it to their offspring in the jungles of Borneo; it
was a best-seller among the Bolshevists. In the United States alone
three million copies were disposed of. For a man who has not
accomplished anything outstandingly great in his life, it is something
to have been in a sense responsible for a song like that; and, though
there were moments when Archie experienced some of the emotions of a
man who has punched a hole in the dam of one of the larger reservoirs,
he never really regretted his share in the launching of the thing.
It seems almost bizarre now to think that there was a time when even
one person in the world had not heard “Mother’s Knee”; but it came
fresh to Archie one afternoon some weeks after the episode of Washy, in
his suite at the Hotel Cosmopolis, where he was cementing with
cigarettes and pleasant conversation his renewed friendship with Wilson
Hymack, whom he had first met in the neighbourhood of Armentières
during the war.
“What are you doing these days?” enquired Wilson Hymack.
“Me?” said Archie. “Well, as a matter of fact, there is what you might
call a sort of species of lull in my activities at the moment. But my
jolly old father-in-law is bustling about, running up a new hotel a bit
farther down-town, and the scheme is for me to be manager when it’s
finished. From what I have seen in this place, it’s a simple sort of
job, and I fancy I shall be somewhat hot stuff. How are you filling in
the long hours?”
“I’m in my uncle’s office, darn it!”
“Starting at the bottom and learning the business and all that? A noble
pursuit, no doubt, but I’m bound to say it would give me the pip in no
uncertain manner.”
“It gives me,” said Wilson Hymack, “a pain in the thorax. I want to be
a composer.”
“A composer, eh?”
Archie felt that he should have guessed this. The chappie had a
distinctly artistic look. He wore a bow-tie and all that sort of thing.
His trousers bagged at the knees, and his hair, which during the
martial epoch of his career had been pruned to the roots, fell about
his ears in luxuriant disarray.
“Say! Do you want to hear the best thing I’ve ever done?”
“Indubitably,” said Archie, politely. “Carry on, old bird!”
“I wrote the lyric as well as the melody,” said Wilson Hymack, who had
already seated himself at the piano. “It’s got the greatest title you
ever heard. It’s a lallapaloosa! It’s called ‘It’s a Long Way Back to
Mother’s Knee.’ How’s that? Poor, eh?”
Archie expelled a smoke-ring doubtfully.
“Isn’t it a little stale?”
“Stale? What do you mean, stale? There’s always room for another song
boosting Mother.”
“Oh, is it boosting Mother?” Archie’s face cleared. “I thought it was a
hit at the short skirts. Why, of course, that makes all the difference.
In that case, I see no reason why it should not be ripe, fruity, and
pretty well all to the mustard. Let’s have it.”
Wilson Hymack pushed as much of his hair out of his eyes as he could
reach with one hand, cleared his throat, looked dreamily over the top
of the piano at a photograph of Archie’s father-in-law, Mr. Daniel
Brewster, played a prelude, and began to sing in a weak, high,
composer’s voice. All composers sing exactly alike, and they have to be
heard to be believed.
“One night a young man wandered through the glitter of Broadway:
His money he had squandered. For a meal he couldn’t pay.”
“Tough luck!” murmured Archie, sympathetically.
“He thought about the village where his boyhood he had spent,
And yearned for all the simple joys with which he’d been content.”
“The right spirit!” said Archie, with approval. “I’m beginning to like
this chappie!”
“Don’t interrupt!”
“Oh, right-o! Carried away and all that!”
“He looked upon the city, so frivolous and gay; And,
as he heaved a weary sigh, these words he then did say:
It’s a long way back to Mother’s knee,
Mother’s knee,
Mother’s knee:
It’s a long way back to Mother’s knee,
Where I used to stand and prattle
With my teddy-bear and rattle:
Oh, those childhood days in Tennessee,
They sure look good to me!
It’s a long, long way, but I’m gonna start to-day!
I’m going back,
Believe me, oh!
I’m going back
(I want to go!)
I’m going back—back—on the seven-three
To the dear old shack where I used to be!
I’m going back to Mother’s knee!”
Wilson Hymack’s voice cracked on the final high note, which was of an
altitude beyond his powers. He turned with a modest cough.
“That’ll give you an idea of it!”
“It has, old thing, it has!”
“Is it or is it not a ball of fire?”
“It has many of the earmarks of a sound egg,” admitted Archie. “Of
course—”
“Of course, it wants singing.”
“Just what I was going to suggest.”
“It wants a woman to sing it. A woman who could reach out for that last
high note and teach it to take a joke. The whole refrain is working up
to that. You need Tetrazzini or someone who would just pick that note
off the roof and hold it till the janitor came round to lock up the
building for the night.”
“I must buy a copy for my wife. Where can I get it?”
“You can’t get it! It isn’t published. Writing music’s the darndest
job!” Wilson Hymack snorted fiercely. It was plain that the man was
pouring out the pent-up emotion of many days. “You write the biggest
thing in years and you go round trying to get someone to sing it, and
they say you’re a genius and then shove the song away in a drawer and
forget about it.”
Archie lit another cigarette.
“I’m a jolly old child in these matters, old lad,” he said, “but why
don’t you take it direct to a publisher? As a matter of fact, if it
would be any use to you, I was foregathering with a music-publisher
only the other day. A bird of the name of Blumenthal. He was lunching
in here with a pal of mine, and we got tolerably matey. Why not let me
tool you round to the office to-morrow and play it to him?”
“No, thanks. Much obliged, but I’m not going to play that melody in any
publisher’s office with his hired gang of Tin-Pan Alley composers
listening at the keyhole and taking notes. I’ll have to wait till I can
find somebody to sing it. Well, I must be going along. Glad to have
seen you again. Sooner or later I’ll take you to hear that high note
sung by someone in a way that’ll make your spine tie itself in knots
round the back of your neck.”
“I’ll count the days,” said Archie, courteously. “Pip-pip!”
Hardly had the door closed behind the composer when it opened again to
admit Lucille.
“Hallo, light of my soul!” said Archie, rising and embracing his wife.
“Where have you been all the afternoon? I was expecting you this many
an hour past. I wanted you to meet—”
“I’ve been having tea with a girl down in Greenwich Village. I couldn’t
get away before. Who was that who went out just as I came along the
passage?”
“Chappie of the name of Hymack. I met him in France. A composer and
what not.”
“We seem to have been moving in artistic circles this afternoon. The
girl I went to see is a singer. At least, she wants to sing, but gets
no encouragement.”
“Precisely the same with my bird. He wants to get his music sung but
nobody’ll sing it. But I didn’t know you knew any Greenwich Village
warblers, sunshine of my home. How did you meet this female?”
Lucille sat down and gazed forlornly at him with her big grey eyes. She
was registering something, but Archie could not gather what it was.
“Archie, darling, when you married me you undertook to share my
sorrows, didn’t you?”
“Absolutely! It’s all in the book of words. For better or for worse, in
sickness and in health, all-down-set-’em-up-in-the-other-alley. Regular
iron-clad contract!”
“Then share ’em!” said Lucille. “Bill’s in love again!”
Archie blinked.
“Bill? When you say Bill, do you mean Bill? Your brother Bill? My
brother-in-law Bill? Jolly old William, the son and heir of the
Brewsters?”
“I do.”
“You say he’s in love? Cupid’s dart?”
“Even so!”
“But, I say! Isn’t this rather—What I mean to say is, the lad’s an
absolute scourge! The Great Lover, what! Also ran, Brigham Young, and
all that sort of thing! Why, it’s only a few weeks ago that he was
moaning brokenly about that vermilion-haired female who subsequently
hooked on to old Reggie van Tuyl!”
“She’s a little better than that girl, thank goodness. All the same, I
don’t think Father will approve.”
“Of what calibre is the latest exhibit?”
“Well, she comes from the Middle West, and seems to be trying to be
twice as Bohemian as the rest of the girls down in Greenwich Village.
She wears her hair bobbed and goes about in a kimono. She’s probably
read magazine stories about Greenwich Village, and has modelled herself
on them. It’s so silly, when you can see Hicks Corners sticking out of
her all the time.”
“That one got past me before I could grab it. What did you say she had
sticking out of her?”
“I meant that anybody could see that she came from somewhere out in the
wilds. As a matter of fact, Bill tells me that she was brought up in
Snake Bite, Michigan.”
“Snake Bite? What rummy names you have in America! Still, I’ll admit
there’s a village in England called Nether Wallop, so who am I to cast
the first stone? How is old Bill? Pretty feverish?”
“He says this time it is the real thing.”
“That’s what they all say! I wish I had a dollar for every
time—Forgotten what I was going to say!” broke off Archie, prudently.
“So you think,” he went on, after a pause, “that William’s latest is
going to be one more shock for the old dad?”
“I can’t imagine Father approving of her.”
“I’ve studied your merry old progenitor pretty closely,” said Archie,
“and, between you and me, I can’t imagine him approving of anybody!”
“I can’t understand why it is that Bill goes out of his way to pick
these horrors. I know at least twenty delightful girls, all pretty and
with lots of money, who would be just the thing for him; but he sneaks
away and goes falling in love with someone impossible. And the worst of
it is that one always feels one’s got to do one’s best to see him
through.”
“Absolutely! One doesn’t want to throw a spanner into the works of
Love’s young dream. It behoves us to rally round. Have you heard this
girl sing?”
“Yes. She sang this afternoon.”
“What sort of a voice has she got?”
“Well, it’s—loud!”
“Could she pick a high note off the roof and hold it till the janitor
came round to lock up the building for the night?”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Answer me this, woman, frankly. How is her high note? Pretty lofty?”
“Why, yes.”
“Then say no more,” said Archie. “Leave this to me, my dear old better
four-fifths! Hand the whole thing over to Archibald, the man who never
lets you down. I have a scheme!”
As Archie approached his suite on the following afternoon he heard
through the closed door the drone of a gruff male voice; and, going in,
discovered Lucille in the company of his brother-in-law. Lucille,
Archie thought, was looking a trifle fatigued. Bill, on the other hand,
was in great shape. His eyes were shining, and his face looked so like
that of a stuffed frog that Archie had no difficulty in gathering that
he had been lecturing on the subject of his latest enslaver.
“Hallo, Bill, old crumpet!” he said.
“Hallo, Archie!”
“I’m so glad you’ve come,” said Lucille. “Bill is telling me all about
Spectatia.”
“Who?”
“Spectatia. The girl, you know. Her name is Spectatia Huskisson.”
“It can’t be!” said Archie, incredulously.
“Why not?” growled Bill.
“Well, how could it?” said Archie, appealing to him as a reasonable
man. “I mean to say! Spectatia Huskisson! I gravely doubt whether there
is such a name.”
“What’s wrong with it?” demanded the incensed Bill. “It’s a darned
sight better name than Archibald Moffam.”
“Don’t fight, you two children!” intervened Lucille, firmly. “It’s a
good old Middle West name. Everybody knows the Huskissons of Snake
Bite, Michigan. Besides, Bill calls her Tootles.”
“Pootles,” corrected Bill, austerely.
“Oh, yes, Pootles. He calls her Pootles.”
“Young blood! Young blood!” sighed Archie.
“I wish you wouldn’t talk as if you were my grandfather.”
“I look on you as a son, laddie, a favourite son!”
“If I had a father like you—!”-“Ah, but you haven’t,
young-feller-me-lad, and that’s the trouble. If you had, everything
would be simple. But as your actual father, if you’ll allow me to say
so, is one of the finest specimens of the human vampire-bat in
captivity, something has got to be done about it, and you’re dashed
lucky to have me in your corner, a guide, philosopher, and friend, full
of the fruitiest ideas. Now, if you’ll kindly listen to me for a
moment—”
“I’ve been listening to you ever since you came in.”
“You wouldn’t speak in that harsh tone of voice if you knew all!
William, I have a scheme!”
“Well?”
“The scheme to which I allude is what Maeterlinck would call a
lallapaloosa!”
“What a little marvel he is!” said Lucille, regarding her husband
affectionately. “He eats a lot of fish, Bill. That’s what makes him so
clever!”
“Shrimps!” diagnosed Bill, churlishly.
“Do you know the leader of the orchestra in the restaurant downstairs?”
asked Archie, ignoring the slur.
“I know there _is_ a leader of the orchestra. What about him?”
“A sound fellow. Great pal of mine. I’ve forgotten his name—”
“Call him Pootles!” suggested Lucille.
“Desist!” said Archie, as a wordless growl proceeded from his stricken
brother-in-law. “Temper your hilarity with a modicum of reserve. This
girlish frivolity is unseemly. Well, I’m going to have a chat with this
chappie and fix it all up.”
“Fix what up?”
“The whole jolly business. I’m going to kill two birds with one stone.
I’ve a composer chappie popping about in the background whose one
ambish. is to have his pet song sung before a discriminating audience.
You have a singer straining at the leash. I’m going to arrange with
this egg who leads the orchestra that your female shall sing my
chappie’s song downstairs one night during dinner. How about it? Is it
or is it not a ball of fire?”
“It’s not a bad idea,” admitted Bill, brightening visibly. “I wouldn’t
have thought you had it in you.”
“Why not?”
“Well—”
“It’s a capital idea,” said Lucille. “Quite out of the question, of
course.”
“How do you mean?”
“Don’t you know that the one thing Father hates more than anything else
in the world is anything like a cabaret? People are always coming to
him, suggesting that it would brighten up the dinner hour if he had
singers and things, and he crushes them into little bits. He thinks
there’s nothing that lowers the tone of a place more. He’ll bite you in
three places when you suggest it to him!”
“Ah! But has it escaped your notice, lighting system of my soul, that
the dear old dad is not at present in residence? He went off to fish at
Lake What’s-its-name this morning.”
“You aren’t dreaming of doing this without asking him?”
“That was the general idea.”
“But he’ll be furious when he finds out.”
“But will he find out? I ask you, will he?”
“Of course he will.”
“I don’t see why he should,” said Bill, on whose plastic mind the plan
had made a deep impression.
“He won’t,” said Archie, confidently. “This wheeze is for one night
only. By the time the jolly old guv’nor returns, bitten to the bone by
mosquitoes, with one small stuffed trout in his suit-case, everything
will be over and all quiet once more along the Potomac. The scheme is
this. My chappie wants his song heard by a publisher. Your girl wants
her voice heard by one of the blighters who get up concerts and all
that sort of thing. No doubt you know such a bird, whom you could
invite to the hotel for a bit of dinner?”
“I know Carl Steinburg. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of writing
to him about Spectatia.”
“You’re absolutely sure that _is_ her name?” said Archie, his voice
still tinged with incredulity. “Oh, well, I suppose she told you so
herself, and no doubt she knows best. That will be topping. Rope in
your pal and hold him down at the table till the finish. Lucille, the
beautiful vision on the sky-line yonder, and I will be at another table
entertaining Maxie Blumenthal.”
“Who on earth is Maxie Blumenthal?” asked Lucille.
“One of my boyhood chums. A music-publisher. I’ll get him to come
along, and then we’ll all be set. At the conclusion of the performance
Miss—” Archie winced—“Miss Spectatia Huskisson will be signed up for a
forty weeks’ tour, and jovial old Blumenthal will be making all
arrangements for publishing the song. Two birds, as I indicated before,
with one stone! How about it?”
“It’s a winner,” said Bill.
“Of course,” said Archie, “I’m not urging you. I merely make the
suggestion. If you know a better ’ole go to it!”
“It’s terrific!” said Bill.
“It’s absurd!” said Lucille.
“My dear old partner of joys and sorrows,” said Archie, wounded, “we
court criticism, but this is mere abuse. What seems to be the
difficulty?”
“The leader of the orchestra would be afraid to do it.”
“Ten dollars—supplied by William here—push it over, Bill, old man—will
remove his tremors.”
“And Father’s certain to find out.”
“Am I afraid of Father?” cried Archie, manfully. “Well, yes, I am!” he
added, after a moment’s reflection. “But I don’t see how he can
possibly get to know.”
“Of course he can’t,” said Bill, decidedly. “Fix it up as soon as you
can, Archie. This is what the doctor ordered.”