THE MUSICALE
DINNER was served at the family table, with Mr. West at the head and
his mother at the foot.
"The eye is the window of the soul," thought Percy, as he met the
glance of Adelaide sitting opposite. Certain he was that he had
never before looked into such alluring eyes.
Adelaide was neither a girl nor a woman and yet at times she was
both. With the other children she was a child that still loved to
romp and play with the rest, free as a bird. Her mother, a
sweet-faced woman, some years her husband's junior, made sisters of
all her daughters, the more naturally perhaps, because the
grandmother was still so active and so interested in all phases of
homemaking that she seemed mother to them all. Adelaide's two older
sisters were married and her brother Charles, also older than
herself, by three years, was a senior in college. Adelaide had just
finished her course in the Academy where the long service of a
maiden aunt as a teacher had secured certain appreciated privileges,
without which it is doubtful if both Charles and Adelaide could have
been sent away to school at the same time. A boy of fourteen and the
eight-year old baby brother with two sisters between comprised the
younger members of the family.
Miss Bowman, the teacher of the district school, also occupied a
place at the table. The evening meal was disposed of without delay,
for there was something of greater importance to follow. A musicale
in the near-by country church had been in preparation and Percy
heartily accepted an invitation to accompany the family to the
evening's entertainment. Or rather he accompanied Mr. and Mrs. West
and the grandmother, for all the children had walked the distance
before the carriage arrived.
Without having specialized in music, nevertheless Percy had improved
the frequent opportunities he had had, especially while at the
university, and he had learned to appreciate quality in the musical
world. Consequently he was not a little surprised and greatly
pleased to sit and listen to a class of music that he had never
before heard rendered in country places; but, as he listened for
Adelaide's singing in chorus, duet, and solo, he found himself
wondering whether the eye or the voice more clearly revealed the
soul.
"It seemed like the old times," said the grandmother, with something
like a sigh, as she took her place in the carriage. "If our land was
only like it used to be! but it's become so mighty poor our children
can't have many advantages these days. The Harcourt's and Staunton's
whom you met are descendants of ancestors once well known in this
state."
"It seems to me that the land need not have grown poor," said
Percy. "If the land was once productive, its fertility ought to be
maintained by the return of the essential materials removed in crops
or destroyed by cultivation. Surely land need not become poor; but
of course I know too little about this land to suggest at the
present time what method could best be adopted for its improvement."
"We can tell you what the best method is," she quickly replied.
"Just put on plenty of ordinary farm fertilizer, but, laws, we don't
have enough to cover fifty acres a year."
For a time each seemed lost in thought, or listening to the husband
and wife who sat in the front seat quietly talking of the evening's
performances. Percy recognized some of the names they mentioned as
belonging to persons to whom he had been presented at the church. It
gradually dawned upon him that he had spent the evening with the
aristocracy of the Blue Mound neighborhood. Culture, refinement, and
poverty were the chief characteristics of the people who had been
assembled.
"It need not have been," he repeated to himself; "surely, it need
not have been, "and then he wondered if these were not much sadder
words than the oft repeated "it might have been."
"May I ask where your people came from, Mrs. West?" he questioned.
"Where we came from?" she repeated, "I don't quite understand."
"Excuse me," said Percy, "but in the West it is so common to ask
people where they are from. You know the West is settled with people
from all sections of the East, and many from Europe and from Canada,
and I thought your ancestors may have moved here from some other
state, as from Pennsylvania for example, where my mother's people
once lived."
"Let me advise you, Young Man," said the grandmother briskly, and in
a tone that reminded Percy of the twinkle he had at times noticed in
her eyes when she seemed young again--"Let me advise you never to
ask a Virginian if he was born in Pennsylvania. That's more than
most Virginians can stand. Once a Virginian, always a
Virginian,--both now, hereafter, and hitherto. It's mighty hard to
find a Virginian who came from anywhere except from the royal blood
of England; although some may condescend to acknowledge kinship to
the Scottish royalty."
The grandmother's voice was raised to a pitch which commanded the
attention of the other members in the carriage and a hearty laugh
followed her jovial wit, to the full relief of Percy's temporary
embarrassment.
"Well," she continued, "to answer your question: my husband and my
children are direct descendants of Colonel Charles West, a brother
of Lord Delaware, who was Sir Thomas West, whose ancestry goes back
to Henry the Second, of England, and to David the First, of
Scotland; and my granddaughter is the great-granddaughter of Patrick
Henry. So now you know where _we _came from," and she laughed again
like a girl. "Yes," she added, "we have a family tree six feet from
branch to branch, but it is stored in a back room where I am sure it
is covered with cobwebs, for we have no time to live with the past
when the summer boarders are here."
As the carriage stopped at the side gate, the children's voices
could be heard in the rear; for Mr. West had been living over again
his younger days with his sweet-faced wife, and the farm team had
taken its own time.