The mysteries of the backwoods, or, Sketches of
the Southwest including character, scenery, and rural sports |
A PIANO IN “ARKANSAW.” |
 |
 | The mysteries of the backwoods, or, Sketches of
the Southwest |  |
A PIANO IN “ARKANSAW.”
We shall never forget the excitement which seized
upon the inhabitants of the little village of Hardscrabble,
as the report spread through the community
that a real piano had actually arrived within
its precincts. Speculation was afloat as to its appearance
and its use. The name was familiar with
everybody; but what it precisely meant, no one
could tell. That it had legs was certain; for a stray
volume of some traveller was one of the most conspicuous
works in the floating library of Hardscrabble;
and said traveller stated he had seen a piano
somewhere in New England with pantalettes on.
An old foreign paper was brought forward, in which
there was an advertisement headed “Soiree,” which
informed the “citizens generally,” that Mr. Bobolink
would preside at the piano.
This was presumed by several wiseacres, who had
been to a menagerie, to mean that Mr. Bobolink
stirred the piano up with a long pole, in the same
way the showman did the lions and rhi-no-ce-rus.
So public opinion was in favour of its being an
animal, though a harmless one; for there had been
a land speculator through the village a few weeks
before, who distributed circulars of a “Female
Academy,” for the accomplishment of young ladies.
These circulars distinctly stated “the use of the
old chap said, if they would tell him what so-i-ree
meant, he would tell them what a piano was, and no
mistake.
The owner of this strange instrument was no less
than a very quiet and very respectable late merchant
in a little town somewhere “north,” who, having
failed at home, had emigrated into the new and
hospitable country of Arkansas, for the purpose of
bettering his fortune, and escaping the heartless
sympathy of his more lucky neighbours, who seemed
to consider him an indifferent and degraded man
because he had become honestly poor.
The new comers were strangers of course. The
house in which they were setting up their furniture,
was too little arranged “to admit of calls;” and as
the family seemed very little disposed to court
society, all prospects of immediately solving the
mystery that hung about the piano seemed hopeless.
In the mean time public opinion was “rife.” The
depository of this strange thing was looked upon by
the passers-by with indefinable awe; and as noises
unfamiliar reached the street, it was presumed that
the piano made them, and the excitement rose
higher than ever. In the midst of it, one or two old
ladies, presuming upon their age and respectability,
called upon the strangers and inquired after their
health, and offered their services and friendship;
meantime every thing in the house was eyed with
the greatest intensity, but seeing nothing strange, a
hint was given about the piano. One of the new
family observed carelessly, “that it had been much
its tones, and that one of its legs was so injured
that it would not stand up, and that for the present
it would not ornament the parlour.”
Here was an explanation, indeed: injured in
bringing out—damp affecting its tones—leg broken.
“Poor thing!” ejaculated the old ladies with real
sympathy, as they proceeded homeward; “travelling
has evidently fatigued it; the Mass-is-sip fogs
have given it a cold, poor thing!” and they wished
to see it with increased curiosity. “The village”
agreed that if Moses Mercer, familiarly called “Mo
Mercer,” was in town, they would have a description
of the piano, and the uses to which it was put;
and fortunately, in the midst of the excitement, “Mo”
arrived, he having been temporarily absent on a
hunting expedition.
Moses Mercer was the only son of “old Mercer,”
who was, and had been, in the state senate ever
since Arkansas was admitted into the “Union.” Mo,
from this fact, received great glory, of course; his
father's greatness alone would have stamped him
with superiority; but his having been twice to the
“Capitol,” when the legislature was in session,
stamped his claims to pre-eminence over all competitors;
and Mo Mercer was the oracle of the
renowned village of Hardscrabble.
“Mo” knew every thing; he had all the consequence
and complacency of a man who had never
seen his equal, and never expected to. “Mo”
bragged extensively upon his having been to the
“Capitol” twice,—of his there having been in the
world. His return to town was received with a
shout. The arrival of the piano was announced to
him, and he alone of all the community was not
astonished at the news.
His insensibility was considered wonderful. He
treated the piano as a thing he was used to, and
went on, among other things to say, that he had seen
more pianos in the “Capitol,” than he had ever
seen woodchucks; and that it was not an animal,
but a musical instrument, played upon by the ladies;
and he wound up his description by saying that the
way “the dear creeters could pull music out of it
was a caution to hoarse owls.”
The new turn given to the piano excitement in
Hardscrabble, by Mo Mercer, was like pouring oil
on fire to extinguish it, for it blazed out with more
vigour than ever. That it was a musical instrument,
made it a rarer thing than if it had been an animal
in that wild country, and people of all sizes, colours,
and degrees, were dying to see and hear it.
Jim Cash was Mo Mercer's right hand man;
in the language of refined society, he was “Mo's
toady,”—in the language of Hardscrabble, he was
“Mo's wheel-horse.” Cash believed in Mo Mercer
with an abandonment perfectly ridiculous. Mr.
Cash was dying to see the piano, and the first opportunity
he had alone with his Quixotte, he expressed
the desire that was consuming his vitals.
“We'll go at once and see it,” said Mercer.
“Strangers!” echoed the frightened Cash.
“Humbug! Do you think I have visited the
fashionable society? Come along at once, Cash,”
said Mercer.
Off the pair started, Mercer all confidence, and
Cash all fears, as to the propriety of the visit. These
fears Cash frankly expressed; but Mercer repeated,
for the thousandth time, his experience in the fashionable
society of the “Capitol,” and with pianos,
which he said, “was synonymous.” And he finally
told Cash, to comfort him, that however abashed
and ashamed he might be in the presence of the
ladies, “that he needn't fear of sticking, for he
would put him through.”
A few minutes' walk brought the parties on the
broad galleries of the house that contained the object
of so much curiosity. The doors and windows were
closed, and a suspicious look was on every thing.
“Do they always keep a house closed up this way
that has a piano in it?” asked Cash, mysteriously.
“Certainly,” replied Mercer, “the damp would
destroy its tones.”
Repeated knocks at the doors, and finally at the
windows, satisfied both Cash and Mercer that nobody
was at home. In the midst of their disappointment,
Cash discovered a singular machine at the end
of the gallery, crossed by bars and rollers, and surmounted
with an enormous crank. Cash approached
it on tiptoe; he had a presentiment that he beheld
the object of his curiosity, and as its intricate character
unfolded itself, he gazed with distended eyes,
and asked Mercer, with breathless anxiety, “what
that was?”
Mercer turned to the thing as coolly as a north
wind to an icicle, and said, “that was it.”
“That IT!!” exclaimed Cash, opening his eyes
still wider; and then, recovering himself, he asked
to see “the tones.”
Mercer pointed to the cross-bars and rollers.
With trembling hands, and a resolution that would
enable a man to be scalped without winking, Cash
reached out his hand, and seized the handle of the
crank; (Cash at heart was a brave and fearless man;)
he gave it a turn, the machinery grated harshly, and
seemed to clamour for something to be put in its
maw.
“What delicious sounds!” said Cash.
“Beautiful!” observed the complacent Mercer, at
the same time seizing Cash's arm, and asking him
to desist, for fear of breaking the instrument or getting
it out of tone.
The simple caution was sufficient; and Cash, in
the joy of the moment at what he had done and seen,
looked as conceited as Mo Mercer himself. Busy
indeed was Cash, from this time forward, in explaining
to gaping crowds the exact appearance of the
piano, how he had actually taken hold of it, and, as
his friend Mo Mercer observed, “pulled music out
of it.”
The curiosity of the village was thus allayed, and
it died comparatively away; Cash, however, having
rose to almost as much importance as Mo Mercer, for
having seen and handled the thing.
Our “northern family” knew little or nothing of
all this excitement; they received the visits and congratulations
to give a grand party to return some of the kindness
they had received, and the piano was for the first
time moved into the parlour. No invitation on this
occasion was neglected; early at the post was every
visiter, for it was rumoured that Miss Patience Doolittle
would, in course of the evening, “perform on
the piano.”
The excitement was immense. The supper was
passed over with a contempt that rivals that cast
upon an excellent farce played preparatory to a dull
tragedy, in which the star is to appear. The furniture
was all critically examined; but nothing could
be discovered answering Cash's description. An
enormously thick-leafed table, with a “spread” upon
it, attracted little attention, timber being so cheap in
a new country, and so everybody expected soon to
see the piano “brought in.”
Mercer, of course, was the hero of the evening;
he talked much and loud. Cash, as well as several
young ladies, went into hysterics at his wit. Mercer
grew exceedingly conceited even for him, as
the evening wore away; he asserted the company
present reminded him of his two visits to the “Capitol,”
and other associations equally exclusive and
peculiar.
The evening wore on apace, and still no piano.
The hope deferred that maketh the heart sick, was felt
by some elderly ladies, and by a few younger ones;
and Mercer was solicited to ask Miss Patience Doolittle
to favour the company with the presence of
the piano.
“Certainly,” said Mercer. With the grace of a city
dandy, he called upon the lady to gratify all present
with a little music, prefacing his request with the
remark, that if she was fatigued, “his friend Cash
could give the machine a turn.”
Miss Patience smiled, and looked at Cash.
Cash's knees trembled.
All eyes in the room turned upon him.
Cash sweat all over.
Miss Patience said she was gratified to hear that
Mr. Cash was a musician; she admired people who
had a musical taste. Whereupon Cash fell into a
chair, as he afterwards observed, “chawed-up.”
Oh that Beau Brummel or any of his admirers
could have seen Mo Mercer all this while! Calm
as a summer morning, and as complacent as a newly-painted
sign; he smiled and patronised, and was the
only unexcited person in the room.
Miss Patience rose, a sigh escaped from all present,—the
piano was evidently to be brought in.
She approached the thick-leafed table, and removed
the covering, throwing it carelessly and gracefully
aside; opened it, and presented the beautiful arrangement
of dark and white keys.
Mo Mercer at this, for the first time in his life,
looked confused; he was Cash's authority in his descriptions
of the appearance of the piano; while
Cash himself began to recover the moment he
ceased to be an object of attention. Many a whisper
now ran through the room as to the “tones,” and
more particularly the “crank;” none could see
them.
Miss Patience took her seat, ran her fingers over
a few octaves, and if “Moses in Egypt” was not
perfectly executed, Moses in Hardscrabble was.
The music ceased. “Miss,” said Cash, the moment
he could express himself, so entranced was he by
the music,—“Miss Doolittle, what was that instrument
Mo Mercer showed me in your gallery once,
that went by a crank, and had rollers in it?”
It was now the time for Miss Patience to blush;
so away went the blood to her cheeks, with confusion;
she hesitated, stammered, and said, “if Mr.
Cash must know, that it was a-a-a-yankee washing
machine.”
The name grated on Mo Mercer's ears as if rusty
nails had been thrust into them; the heretofore
invulnerable Mercer's knees trembled; the sweat
started to his brow as he heard the taunting whispers
of “visiting the Capitol twice,” and seeing
pianos as plenty as woodchucks.
The fashionable vices of envy and maliciousness
were that moment sown in the village of Hardscrabble;
and Mo Mercer, the great and confident, the
happy and self-possessed, surprising as it may seem,
was the first victim sacrificed to their influence.
Time wore on, and pianos became common, and
Mo Mercer less popular; and he finally disappeared
altogether on the evening of the day a yankee
pedler of notions sold, to the highest bidder, “six
patent, warranted, and improved Mo Mercer pianos.”
| The mysteries of the backwoods, or, Sketches of
the Southwest | |