A Busy Year at the Old Squire's Part 7

Halstead, meantime, was getting down from the chair, still very hot and red. "Well, I warmed the old thing up once!" he muttered defiantly.

"'Twas coming, too. 'Twould have come in one minute more!"

But neither grandmother nor the girls vouchsafed him another look. After a glance round, Addison drew back, shutting the kitchen door, and resumed his pencil. He shook his head sapiently to me, but seemed to be rocked by internal mirth. "Now, wasn't that just like Halse?" he muttered at length.

"What do you think the old Squire will say to this?" I hazarded.

"Oh, not much, I guess," Addison replied, going on with his problem.

"The old gentleman doesn't think it is of much use to talk to him.

Halse, you know, flies all to pieces if he is reproved."

In point of fact I do not believe the old Squire took the matter up with Halstead at all. He did not come home until afternoon, and no one said much to him about what had happened during the morning.

But we had to procure a new churn immediately for the following Tuesday.

Old Mehitable was totally ruined. The bottom and the lower ends of the chimes were warped and charred beyond repair.

Largely influenced by Addison's advice, grandmother Ruth consented to the purchase of one of the new crank churns. For a year or more he had been secretly cogitating a scheme to avoid so much tiresome work when churning; and a crank churn, he foresaw, would lend itself to such a project much more readily than a churn with an upright dasher. It was a plan that finally took the form of a revolving shaft overhead along the walk from the kitchen to the stable, where it was actuated by a light horse-power. Little belts descending from this shaft operated not only the churn but a washing machine, a wringer, a corn shelter, a lathe and several other machines with so much success and saving of labor that even grandmother herself smiled approvingly.

"And that's all due to me!" Halstead used to exclaim once in a while.

"If I hadn't burnt up that old churn, we would be tugging away at it to this day!"

"Yes, Halse, you are a wonderful boy in the kitchen!" Ellen would remark roguishly.

CHAPTER VII

BEAR-TONE

One day about the first of February, Catherine Edwards made the rounds of the neighborhood with a subscription paper to get singers for a singing school. A veteran "singing master"--Seth Clark, well known throughout the country--had offered to give the young people of the place a course of twelve evening lessons or sessions in vocal music, at four dollars per evening; and Catherine was endeavoring to raise the sum of forty-eight dollars for this purpose.

Master Clark was to meet us at the district schoolhouse for song sessions of two hours, twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday evenings at seven o'clock. Among us at the old Squire's we signed eight dollars.

The singing school did not much interest me personally, for the reason that I did not expect to attend. As the Frenchman said when invited to join a fox hunt, I had been. Two winters previously there had been a singing school in an adjoining school district, known as "Bagdad," where along with others I had presented myself as a candidate for vocal culture, and had been rejected on the grounds that I lacked both "time"

and "ear." What was even less to my credit, I had been censured as being concerned in a disturbance outside the schoolhouse. That was my first winter in Maine, and the teacher at that singing school was not Seth Clark, but an itinerant singing master widely known as "Bear-Tone."

As opportunities for musical instruction thereabouts were limited, the old Squire, who loved music and who was himself a fair singer, had advised us to go. Five of us, together with our two young neighbors, Kate and Thomas Edwards, drove over to Bagdad in a three-seated pung sleigh.

The old schoolhouse was crowded with young people when we arrived, and a babel of voices burst on us as we drew rein at the door. After helping the girls from the pung, Addison and I put up the horses at a farmer's barn near by. When we again reached the schoolhouse, a gigantic man in an immense, s.h.a.ggy buffalo coat was just coming up. He entered the building a step behind us.

It was Bear-Tone; and a great hush fell on the young people as he appeared in the doorway. Squeezing hurriedly into seats with the others, Addison and I faced round. Bear-Tone stood in front of the teacher's desk, near the stovepipe, rubbing his huge hands together, for the night was cold. He was smiling, too--a friendly, genial smile that seemed actually to brighten the room.

If he had looked gigantic to us in the dim doorway, he now looked colossal. In fact, he was six feet five inches tall and three feet across the shoulders. He had legs like mill-posts and arms to match; he wore big mittens, because he could not buy gloves large enough for his hands. He was lean and bony rather than fat, and weighed three hundred and twenty pounds, it was said.

His face was big and broad, simple and yet strong; it was ringed round from ear to ear with a short but very thick sandy beard. His eyes were blue, his hair, like his beard, was sandy. He was almost forty years old and was still a bachelor.

"Wal, young ones," he said at last, "reckonin' trundle-bed trash, there's a lot of ye, ain't there?"

His voice surprised me. From such a ma.s.sive man I had expected to hear a profound ba.s.s. Yet his voice was not distinctly ba.s.s, it was clear and flexible. He could sing ba.s.s, it is true, but he loved best to sing tenor, and in that part his voice was wonderfully sweet.

As his speech at once indicated, he was an ignorant man. He had never had musical instruction; he spoke of soprano as "tribble," of alto as "counter," and of baritone as "bear-tone"--a misp.r.o.nunciation that had given him his nickname.

But he could sing! Melody was born in him, so to speak, full-fledged, ready to sing. Musical training would have done him no good, and it might have done him harm. He could not have sung a false note if he had tried; discord really pained him.

"Wal, we may's well begin," he said when he had thoroughly warmed his hands. "What ye got for singin' books here? Dulcimers, or Harps of Judah? All with Harps raise yer right hands. So. Now all with Dulcimers, left hands. So. Harps have it. Them with Dulcimers better get Harps, if ye can, 'cause we want to sing together. But to-night we'll try voices.

I wouldn't wonder if there might be some of ye who might just as well go home and sh.e.l.l corn as try to sing." And he laughed. "So in the first place we'll see if you can sing, and then what part you can sing, whether it's tribble, or counter, or ba.s.s, or tenor. The best way for us to find out is to have you sing the scale--the notes of music. Now these are the notes of music." And without recourse to tuning fork he sang:

"Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do."

The old schoolhouse seemed to swell to the mellow harmony from his big throat. To me those eight notes, as Bear-Tone sang them, were a sudden revelation of what music may be.

"I'll try you first, my boy," he then said, pointing to Newman Darnley, a young fellow about twenty years old who sat at the end of the front row of seats. "Step right out here."

Greatly embarra.s.sed, Newman shambled forth and, turning, faced us.

"Now, sir," said the master, "catch the key-note from me. Do! Now re--mi," and so forth.

Bear-Tone had great difficulty in getting Newman through the scale.

"'Fraid you never'll make a great singer, my boy," he said, "but you may be able to grumble ba.s.s a little, if you prove to have an ear that can follow. Next on that seat."

The pupil so designated was a Bagdad boy named Freeman Knights. He hoa.r.s.ely rattled off, "Do, re, mi, fa, sol," all on the same tone. When Bear-Tone had spent some moments in trying to make him rise and fall on the notes, he exclaimed:

"My dear boy, you may be able to drive oxen, but you'll never sing. It wouldn't do you any good to stay here, and as the room is crowded the best thing you can do is to run home."

Opening the door, he gave Freeman a friendly pat on the shoulder and a push into better air outside.

Afterwards came Freeman's sister, Nellie Knights; she could discern no difference between do and la--at which Bear-Tone heaved a sigh.

"Wai, sis, you'll be able to call chickens, I guess, because that's all on one note, but 'twouldn't be worth while for you to try to sing, or torment a pianner. There are plenty of girls tormentin' pianners now. I guess you'd better go home, too; it may come on to snow."

Nellie departed angrily and slammed the door. Bear-Tone looked after her. "Yes," he said, "'tis kind of hard to say that to a girl. Don't wonder she's a little mad. And yet, that's the kindest thing I can do.

Even in Scripter there was the sheep and the goats; the goats couldn't sing, and the sheep could; they had to be separated."

He went on testing voices and sending the "goats" home. Some of the "goats," however, lingered round outside, made remarks and peeped in at the windows. In an hour their number had grown to eighteen or twenty.

Dreading the ordeal, I slunk into a back seat. I saw my cousin, Addison, who had a fairly good voice, join the "sheep," and then Theodora, Ellen, Kate and Thomas; but I could not escape the ordeal forever, and at last my turn came. When Bear-Tone bade me sing the scale, fear so constricted my vocal cords that I squealed rather than sang.

"Sonny, there's lots of things a boy can do besides sing," Bear-Tone said as he laughingly consigned me to the outer darkness. "It's no great blessing, after all." He patted my shoulder. "I can sing a little, but I've never been good for much else. So don't you feel bad about it."

But I did feel bad, and, joining the "goats" outside, I helped to organize a hostile demonstration. We began to march round the schoolhouse, howling Yankee Doodle. Our discordant noise drew a prompt response. The door opened and Bear-Tone's huge form appeared.

"In about one harf of one minute more I'll be out there and give ye a lesson in Yankee Doodle!" he cried, laughing. His tone sounded good-natured; yet for some reason none of us thought it best to renew the disturbance.

Most of the "goats" dispersed, but, not wishing to walk home alone, I hung round waiting for the others. One window of the schoolroom had been raised, and through that I watched proceedings. Bear-Tone had now tested all the voices except one, and his face showed that he had not been having a very pleasant time. Up in the back seat there still remained one girl, Helen Thomas, who had, according to common report, a rather good voice; yet she was so modest that few had ever heard her either sing or recite.

I saw her come forward, when the master beckoned, and sing her do, re, mi. Bear-Tone, who had stood waiting somewhat apathetically, came suddenly to attention. "Sing that again, little girl," he said.