ANOTHER MATCH-MAKER
"Music waves eternal wands."
THE days went by pleasantly for the school-master, who became more
and more interested in Martha's struggle for an education. He spent
many of his evenings in directing her studies or in reading to her,
and Martha showed her gratitude in a score of ways. Pearl was
delighted with the turn events had taken, and before the month of
January had gone declared that she could see results. Martha was
learning.
There was one other person in the neighbourhood who was taking an
interest in Martha's case and was determined to help it along, and
that was Dr. Emeritus Emory, the music-teacher of the Souris valley.
Dr. Emory was a mystery, a real, live, undiscoverable mystery. All
that was really known of him was that he had come from England
several years before and worked as an ordinary farm-hand with a
farmer at the Brandon Hills. He was a steady, reliable man, very
quiet and reticent. That he knew anything about music was discovered
quite by accident one day when the family for whom he worked were all
away to a picnic and "Emer" was left to mind the house. One of the
neighbour's boys came over to borrow a neck-yoke. "Emer," glad to be
alone in the house, was in the parlour playing the piano. The
neighbour's boy knocked and knocked at the back door, but got no
response. Finally he went around to the front and looked in the
window to see who was playing the piano, and there sat "Emer"
"ripplin' it off by the yard," the boy said afterward, "the
smashin'est band music you ever heard."
Soon after that "Emer" left the plough, and Dr Emeritus Emory began
to teach music to the young people of the neighbourhood and of the
neighbourhoods beyond, for he was fond of long walks and thought
nothing of twenty miles in a day. His home was where night found him,
and, being of a genial, kindly nature, he was a welcome guest at many
a fireside.
The music-teacher's reticence regarding his own affairs exasperated
some of the women. There was no human way of finding out who he was
or why he left home. Mrs. George Steadman once indignantly exclaimed,
speaking of Dr. Emory,--"You can't even tell if he's married, or if
she's livin'. Maybe she is, for all we know. He never gets no mail.
George went and asked."
Dr. Emory was equally silent on the happenings at the houses at which
he stayed. Mrs. Steadman pointed out to Mrs. Motherwell that "if the
old lad wanted he could be real chatty, instead of sittin' around
singin' his little fiddlin' toons. Here last week when he came to
give Maudie her lesson he came straight from Slater's, and I was just
dyin' to know if they was gettin' ready for Edith's weddin'. We heard
it had been put off, and so I asked him out straight if he saw much
sewin' around. 'They were sewin' onion seed,' says he. He seems kinda
stoopid sometimes. But I says to him, makin' it as plain as I could,
'I mean, did ye see any sewin' around the house, did ye see anything
in the line of sewin?' because I know people often put it away, but
if he was half smart he'd see the bastin' threads or somethin', so I
says, 'Did you see anythin' like sewin?' 'Just the sewin'-machine,'
says he, thinkin' hard. 'I remember distinctly seein' it.' Then I
just got my dander up, for I was determined to know about it, and I
knew very well he c'ud tell me if he'd a mind to. I says, 'Do ye
think Edith is gittin' ready to be married?' and says he, real solemn
like--I thought for sure he was goin' to tell me somethin'--says he,
'Mrs. Steadman, I believe every girl is gittin' ready for her weddin'
sometime. Maudie here is doin' an ocean-wave huckaback cushion now, I
see. What's that for, I wonder? I suppose Edith Slater is gittin'
ready. I don't see why she shouldn't,' and then he began to lilt a
little foreign toon, and I was good and mad, I can tell ye; but ye
can't get nothin' out, of him. He gits his livin' pretty easy, too,
and he ought to be a little chatty, I think."
Dr. Emeritus Emory was not so engrossed in his profession as to be
insensible to a good square meal and a well-kept room to sleep in,
and so a chart of his peregrinations through the neighbourhood, with
the meal-stations starred, would have been a surer guide to the good
bread and butter makers than the findings of the Agricultural Society
which presumed every year at the "Show Fair" to pick the winners, and
any young man looking for a wife would make no mistake if he
"followed the stars."
Dr. Emory seldom passed the Perkins home without stopping, and
although he had no pupil there since Edith left, he almost invariably
planned his pilgrimage so as to be there about nightfall, for a good
supper, bed, and breakfast and a warm welcome were not to be passed
by.
If the music-teacher's way of getting his board and lodging was
unique, he had also his own system of getting his laundry work done.
Like all systems, it had its limitations; it required a certain
understanding on the part of the lady of the house. This sometimes
did not exist, and so it happened that the pair of stockings or the
underwear that he left, quite by accident, in the room he had
occupied were returned to him on his next visit, neatly wrapped in
newspaper, but otherwise unchanged in condition.
But Martha Perkins never failed him. On his next visit the articles
he had left were always returned to him, washed, ironed, and oven
mended, and Martha always asked, as if there were some chance of
doubt, if they were his.
Although he had never thanked Martha for her kindness, Dr. Emory was
deeply sensible of it, an many a time as he came walking down the
river-bank and saw the Perkins home, with its friendly, smoke curling
up through the trees, a lively feeling of gratitude stirred in him.
He had a habit of talking to him-self--gossiping, indeed, for it was
only to himself that he discussed neighbourhood matters or his own
affairs.
"Martha's a good girl," he said to himself one night as he came down
the long Souris hill, "a very good girl. She puts a conscientious
darn on the heel of a sock, quiet, unobtrusive, like herself. Martha
should marry. Twenty years from now if Martha's not married she will
be lonesome ... and gray and sad. I can see her, bent a little--good
still, and patient, but when all alone ... quite sad. It is well to
live alone and be free when one is young ... the world is wide ...
but the time comes when one would like ...company--all one's own
...some one who ... cares."
The old man suddenly came to himself and looked around suspiciously
at the bare oaks and willows that fringed the road. Not even to them
would he impart the secret of his heart. But some vision of the past
seemed to trouble him for he walked more slowly and seemed to be
quite insensible of the beauty of the scene around him.
The setting, sun threw long shafts of crimson light across the
snowbound valley and lit the windows of the distant farmhouse into
flame. A white rabbit flashed across the road and disappeared in the
brown scrub. The wind, which had blown all day, had ceased as evening
approached, and now not a branch stirred in the quiet valley, over
which the purple shades of the winter evening were creeping.
"It's a good world," he said at last, as if trying to convince
himself--"it is full of beauty and music. I think there must be
another world . . . over beyond the edge of things . . . a world that
is perhaps a little kinder and more just--it must be. I think it will
be--"
A flock of prairie chickens rose out of the snow almost at his feet
and flew rapidly across the river and up over the other hill. His eye
followed their flight--he loved those brave birds, who stay with us
through the longest winter and whose stout hearts no storm can daunt.
Then softly he began to sing, a brave song of love and pain and
enduring, a song that helped him to believe that:
"Good will fall,
At last, far off, at last--to all,
And every winter change to spring."
His voice wavered and trembled at first, as if it, too, felt the
weariness of the years, but by the time he had sung the first verse
all trace of sadness had vanished, and he went up the other, bank
walking briskly and singing almost gaily.
Thomas Perkins, doing his evening chores, stopped to listen at the
stable door as the old doctor came across the white field, then he
shook his head and said. "By George, it's well to be him, not a
blessed thing to bother him. It's great how easy some people get
through the world."
That night, after a warm supper, the old doctor sat in the cheerful
kitchen of the Perkins home and watched Martha quickly and deftly
clearing away the dishes. Humming to himself an air from "Faust" no
one would have thought that he was deliberately contemplating doing a
match-making turn, but certain it is that his brain was busy devising
means of suggesting to Arthur what a splendid girl Martha was.
There was this difference between Dr. Emory and Pearl Watson as
match-makers,--Pearl played the game perfectly fair, calling to her
aid such honest helps as the spelling-book and the pages of the
Woman's Magazine. The doctor, who knew more of the devious paths of
the human heart, chose other weapons for his warfare.
Arthur came over for his bread that evening also, and when Dr. Emory
went to the organ in the parlour and began to play, every one in the
house went in to listen. He did not often play without being asked,
but to-night he suggested it himself. The parlour lamp was lighted, a
gorgeous affair with a large pink globe on which a stalwart deer,
poised on a rock, was about to spring across a rushing stream. But
the parlour lamp seemed to expend all its energy lighting up, the
deer and stream and the wreath of wild roses on the other side, and
have very little left for the room. The doctor silently commended its
dim light, for it suited his purpose better.
At Mr. Perkins's request he played Irish reels and jigs. Mrs. Perkins
had only one favourite, "Home, Sweet Home," with variations; that was
the only tune she was real sure of. When the Doctor got these two
orders filled he began the real business of the evening with Handel's
"Largo." Mr. Perkins began to yawn and soon took his departure,
closely followed by Mrs. Perkins. They unitedly declared that they
"didn't like a die-away ducky piece like that that hadn't any swing
to it."
The Doctor's fine old eyes were shining with a real purpose as he
played. "I'll suggest their thoughts for them," the old man was
chuckling to himself. "Who can resist these dreamy love-songs?"--he
was playing Schubert's "Serenade." "Twilight and music! If the moon
would only show her face at the window! I'm letting loose a whole
flock of cupids. Oh, I know, I know, I've heard their whispers--they
tell you there is no death or loneliness--or separation--lying little
rascals! But sweet, oh, wondrously sweet to listen to. Listen to
this, Arthur--it's all yours--Martha's just as true and pure and
sweet as all this--and she loves you, man alive, think of that.
Sorrow and evil days and death itself will never change Martha--she's
a solid rock for you to build your soul's happiness on. Dream on now,
Arthur, as millions have dreamed before you; let your dreams keep
pace with this--it will carry you on its strong tide--it will land
you safe on the rainbow shore. It carries me even, and I am old and
full of evil days. What must it be to you, Arthur, for you are young
and can easily believe, and the girl who loves you is right beside
you. Take the thought--it's bright with promise--it's full of love
and comfort and home for you."
The schoolmaster stole away to his room upstairs and took a faded
photograph from an old portfolio and kissed it tenderly.
* * *
Behind the lace curtains the full moon, with a golden mist around her
face, shone softly into the dimly-lighted room, and still the old man
played on, the deathless songs of youth and love--the sweet,
changeless melodies which have come down the ages to remind us of the
love that still lives, glorious and triumphant, though the hearts
that loved are dust.