A Cathedral Singer Part 2

"My name is Ashby. Ashby Truesdale. We come from an old English family.

What is your name, and what kind of family do you come from, Mister?"

"And where do you live?"

The lad wheeled, and strode to the edge of the rock,--the path along there is blasted out of solid rock,--and looking downward, he pointed to the first row of buildings in the distant flats.

"We live down there. You see that house in the middle of the block, the little old one between the two big ones?"

The man did not feel sure.

"Well, Mister, you see the statue of Washington and Lafayette?"

The man was certain he saw Washington and Lafayette.

"Well, from there you follow my finger along the row of houses till you come to the littlest, oldest, dingiest one. You see it now, don't you?

We live up under the roof."

"What is the number?"

"It isn't any number. It's half a number. We live in the half that isn't numbered; the other half gets the number."

"And you take your music lessons in one half?"

"Why, yes, Mister. Why not?"

"On a piano?"

"Why, yes, Mister; on _my_ piano."

"Oh, you have a piano, have you?"

"There isn't any sound in about half the keys. Granny says the time has come to rent a better one. She has gone over to the art school to-day to pose to get the money."

A chill of silence fell between the talkers, the one looking up and the other looking down. The man's next question was put in a more guarded tone:

"Does your mother pose as a model?"

"No, Mister, she doesn't pose as a model. She's posing as herself. She said I must have a teacher. Mister, were _you_ ever poor?"

The man looked the boy over from head to foot.

"Do you think you are poor?" he asked.

The good-natured reply came back in a droll tone:

"Well, Mister, we certainly aren't rich."

"Let us see," objected the man, as though this were a point which had better not be yielded, and he began with a voice of one reckoning up items: "Two feet, each cheap at, say, five millions. Two hands--five millions apiece for hands. At least ten millions for each eye. About the same for the ears. Certainly twenty millions for your teeth. Forty millions for your stomach. On the whole, at a rough estimate you must easily be worth over one hundred millions. There are quite a number of old gentlemen in New York, and a good many young ones, who would gladly pay that amount for your investments, for your securities."

The lad with eager upturned countenance did not conceal his amus.e.m.e.nt while the man drew this picture of him as a living ragged gold-mine, as actually put together and made up of pieces of fabulous treasure. A child's notion of wealth is the power to pay for what it has not. The wealth that childhood _is_, escapes childhood; it does not escape the old. What most concerned the lad as to these priceless feet and hands and eyes and ears was the hard-knocked-in fact that many a time he ached throughout this reputed treasury of his being for a five-cent piece, and these reputed millionaires, acting together and doing their level best, could not produce one.

Nevertheless, this fresh and never-before-imagined image of his self-riches amused him. It somehow put him over into the cla.s.s of enormously opulent things; and finding himself a little lonely on that new landscape, he cast about for some object of comparison. Thus his mind was led to the richest of all near-by objects.

"If I were worth a hundred million," he said, with a satisfied twinkle in his eyes, "I would be as rich as the cathedral."

A significant silence followed. The man broke it with a grave surprised inquiry:

"How did you happen to think of the cathedral?"

"I didn't happen to think of it; I couldn't help thinking of it."

"Have you ever been in the cathedral?" inquired the man more gravely still.

"Been in it! We go there all the time. It's our church. Why, good Lord!

Mister, we are descended from a bishop!"

The man laughed outright long and heartily.

"Thank you for telling me," he said as one who suddenly feels himself to have become a very small object through being in the neighborhood of such hereditary beat.i.tudes and ecclesiastical sanct.i.ties. "Are you, indeed? I am glad to know. Indeed, I am!"

"Why, Mister, we have been watching the cathedral from our windows for years. We can see the workmen away up in the air as they finish one part and then another part. I can count the Apostles on the roof. You begin with James the Less and keep straight on around until you come out at Simon. Big Jim and Pete are in the middle of the row." He laughed.

"Surely you are not going to speak of an apostle as Pete! Do you think that is showing proper respect to an apostle?"

"But he was Pete when he was little. He wasn't an apostle then and didn't have any respect."

"And you mustn't call an apostle Big Jim! It sounds dreadful!"

"Then why did he try to call himself James the Greater? That sounds dreadful too. As far as size is concerned he is no bigger than the others: they are all nine and a half feet. The Archangel Gabriel on the roof, he's nine and a half. Everybody standing around on the outside of the roof is nine and a half. If Gabriel had been turned a little to one side, he would blow his trumpet straight over our flat. He didn't blow anywhere one night, for a big wind came up behind him and blew him down and he blew his trumpet at the gutter. But he didn't stay down," boasted the lad.

Throughout his talk he was making it clear that the cathedral was a neighborhood affair; that its haps and mishaps possessed for him the flesh and blood interest of a living person. Love takes mental possession of its object and by virtue of his affection the cathedral had become his companion.

"You seem rather interested in the cathedral. Very much interested,"

remarked the man, strengthening his statement and with increased attention.

"Why, of course, Mister. I've been pa.s.sing there nearly every day since I've been selling papers on the avenue. Sometimes I stop and watch the masons. When I went with Granny to the art school this morning, she told me to go home that way. I have just come from there. They are building another one of the chapels now, and the men are up on the scaffolding.

They carried more rock up than they needed and they would walk to the edge and throw big pieces of it down with a smash. The old house they are using for the choir school is just under there. Sometimes when the cla.s.s is practising, I listen from the outside. If they sing high, I sing high; if they sing low, I sing low. Why, Mister, I can sing up to--"

He broke off abruptly. He had been pouring-out all kinds of confidences to his new-found friend. Now he hesitated. The boldness of his nature deserted him. The deadly preparedness failed. A shy appealing look came into his eyes as he asked his next question--a grave question indeed:

"_Mister, do you love music?_"

"Do I love music?" echoed the startled musician, pierced by the spear-like sincerity of the question, which seemed to go clean through him and his knowledge and to point back to childhood's springs of feeling. "Do I love music? Yes, some music, I hope. Some kinds of music, I hope."

These moderate, chastened words restored the boy's confidence and completely captured his friendship. Now he felt sure of his comrade, and he put to him a more searching question:

"Do _you_ know anything about the cathedral?"