9. CHAPTER IX.
THE NEW SINGING-MASTER.
“HE sings like an owlingale!”
Jonas Harrison was leaning against the
well-curb, talking to Cynthy Ann. He'd been
down to the store at Brayville, he said, a listenin'
to 'em discuss Millerism, and seed a new singing-master
there. “Could he sing good?” Cynthy asked, rather
to prolong the talk than to get information.
“Sings like an owlingale, I reckon. He's got more seals to
his ministry a-hanging onto his watch-chain than I ever seed.
Got a mustache onto the top story of his mouth, somethin' like
a tuft of grass on the roof of a ole shed kitchen. Peart? He's
the peartest-lookin' chap I ever seed. But he a'n't no singin'master—not
ef I'm any jedge of turnips. He warn't born to
sarve his day and generation with a tunin'-fork. I think he's
a-goin' to reckon-water a little in these parts and that he's only
a-playin' singin'-master. He kin play more fiddles'n one, you
bet a hoss! Says he come up here fer his wholesome, and I
guess he did. Think ef he'd a-staid where he was, he mout
[ILLUSTRATION]
"DON'T BE ONCHARITABLE, JONAS."
[Description: 555EAF. Illustration page. Page 064. Engraving of a man sitting on a
well talking to a woman in a bonnet holding a bucket.]
a-suffered a leetle from confinement to his room, and that room
p'raps not more nor five foot by nine, and ruther dim-lighted
and poor-provisioned, an' not much chance fer takin' exercise in
the fresh air!”
“Don't be oncharitable, Jonas, don't. We're all mis'able sinners,
I s'pose; and you know charity don't think no evil. The
man may be all right, ef he does wear hair on his lip. Charity
kivers lots a sins.”
“Ya-as, but charity don't kiver no wolves with wool. An' ef
he a'n't a woolly wolf they's no snakes in Jarsey, as little Ridin'
Hood said when her granny tried to bite her head off. I'm dead
sot in favor of charity, and mean to gin her my vote at every
election, but I a'n't a-goin' to have her put a blind-bridle on to
me. And when a man comes to Clark township a-wearing
straps to his breechaloons to keep hisself from leaving terryfirmy
altogether, and a weightin' hisself down with pewter watch-seals,
gold-washed, and a cultivating a crap of red-top hay onto
his upper lip, and a-lettin' on to be a singin'-master, I suspicions
him. They's too much in the git-up fer the come-out. Well,
here's yer health, Cynthy!”
And having made this oracular speech and quaffed the hard
limestone water, Jonas hung the clean white gourd from which
he had been drinking, in its place against the well-curb, and
started back to the field, while Cynthy Ann carried her bucket
of water into the kitchen, blaming herself for standing so long
talking to Jonas. To Cynthy everything pleasant had a flavor
of sinfulness.
The pail of water was hardly set down in the sink when
there came a knock at the door, and Cynthy found standing by
it the strapped pantaloons, the “red-top” mustache, the watch-seals,
and all the rest that went to make up the new singing-master.
He smiled when he saw her, one of those smiles which
are strictly limited to the lower half of the face, and are wholly
mechanical, as though certain strings inside were pulled with
malice aforethought and the mouth jerked out into a square
grin, such as an ingeniously-made automaton might display.
“Is Mr. Anderson in?”
“No, sir; he's gone to town.”
“Is Mrs. Anderson in?”
And so he entered, and soon got into conversation with the
lady of the house, and despite the prejudice which she entertained
for mustaches, she soon came to like him. He smiled
so artistically. He talked so fluently. He humored all her
whims, pitied all her complaints, and staid to dinner, eating
her best preserves with a graciousness that made Mrs. Anderson
feel how great was his condescension. For Mr. Humphreys,
the singing-master, had looked at the comely face of Julia, and
looked over Julia's shoulders at the broad acres beyond; and he
thought that in Clark township he had not met with so fine a
landscape, so nice a figure-piece. And with the quick eye of a
man of the world, he had measured Mrs. Anderson, and calculated
on the ease with which he might complete the picture
to suit his taste.
He staid to supper. He smiled that same fascinating square
smile on Samuel Anderson, treated him as head of the house,
talked glibly of farming, and listened better than he talked.
He gave no account of himself, except by way of allusion.
He would begin a sentence thus, “When I was traveling in
France with my poor dear mother,” etc., from which Mrs. Anderson
gathered that he had been a devoted son, and then he would
[ILLUSTRATION]
THE HAWK.
[Description: 555EAF. Illustration page. Page 067. Engraving of a man, three-quarter size, with
a moustache holding a top hat.]
relate how he had seen something curious “when he was dining
at the house of the American minister at Berlin.” “This hazy
air reminds me of my native mountains in Northern New York.”
And then he would allude to his study of music in the Conservatory
in Leipsic. To plain country people in an out-of-the-way
Western neighborhood, in 1843, such a man was better
than a lyceum full of lectures. He brought them the odor of
foreign travel, the flavor of city, the “otherness” that everybody
craves.
He staid to dinner, as I have said, and to supper. He staid
over night. He took up his board at the house of Samuel
Anderson. Who could resist his entreaty? Did he not assure
them that he felt the need of a home in a cultivated family?
And was it not the one golden opportunity to have the daughter
of the house taught music by a private master, and thus give a
special eclat to her education? How Mrs. Anderson hoped
that this superior advantage would provoke jealous remarks
on the part of her neighbors! It was only necessary to the
completion of her triumph that they should say she was “stuck
up.” Then, too, to have so brilliant a beau for Julia! A beau
with watch-seals and a mustache, a beau who had been to Paris
with his mother, studied music in the Conservatory at Leipsic,
dined with the American minister in Berlin, and done ever so
many more wonderful things, was a prospect to delight the
ambitious heart of Mrs. Anderson, especially as he flattered the
mother instead of the daughter.
“He's a independent citizen of this Federal Union,” said
Jonas to Cynthy, “carries his head like he was intimately
'quainted with the 'merican eagle hisself. He's playin' this game
sharp. He deals all the trumps to hisself, and most everything
besides. He'll carry off the gal if something don't arrest him in
his headlong career. Jist let me git a chance at him when
he's soarin' loftiest into the amber blue above, and I'll cut his
kite-string fer him, and let him fall like fork-ed lightnin' into
a mud-puddle.”
Cynthy said she did see one great sin that he had committed
for sure. That was the puttin' on of gold and costly apparel.
It was sot down in the Bible and in the Methodist Discipline
that it was a sin to wear gold, and she should think the poor
man hadn't no sort o' regard for his soul, weighing it down with
them things.
But Jonas only remarked that he guessed his jewelry warn't
no sin. He didn't remember nothing agin wearin' pewter.
