Life's Minor Collisions Part 5

The question of applause, so nearly negligible in the screened performance, is a matter of the greatest moment on the platform. The process of responding to it is complicated by numbers. A solo artist can step in easily, bow, and step out again. But it takes too long for a trio of eight or more to step in, bow, and step out. We have to wait behind the scenes for a real encore.

We are highly gratified at a chance to play our encores, of which we carry a supply. The only hitch is the little matter of deciding just what an encore is. The viola thinks that an encore consists of applause going in waves--starting to die out and reviving again in gusts of hearty clapping. Two such gusts, he says, should comprise an encore. But our pianist thinks that we should wait until the clapping stops entirely, and that, if it then bursts out afresh, it shall be esteemed an encore.

One evening the encore was by every standard unmistakable. Our mother was at the piano that night, and, supposing that we were ready, led the way in. The rest of us, absorbed in giving out the parts of the music, did not see her go. We waited, wondering where she was. Tempests of amused applause meanwhile surged up around our lonely accompanist stranded in the hall. We heard the thundering, and scattered in frantic search. One of us could have played the piano part, but the music for that had disappeared as well as the musician. The double-ba.s.s chanced upon the janitor's little boy in the corridor, and asked him if he knew where our accompanist could be.

"Why, yes! Can't you hear 'em clap?" said the boy in surprise. "She's went in."

I have heard that there are sensitive people who are jarred upon by applause, people who hold the perfect-tribute theory: they think that the audience, out of respect to the artist, ought to remain reverently silent after each number. I cannot answer for the great artist, but I know that our trio does not feel that way about it. We like applause.

Silence is a mysterious thing. From behind the stage how are you to tell a reverent hush from a shocked one? The trained ear can instantly cla.s.sify applause; but silence, however reverent, does not carry well behind the scenes. We like a little something after each number to cheer us on.

We do know, however, that in a small private audience there is a sense of strain if the listeners feel obliged to make a demonstration after each selection. Clapping seems affected in a group of three or four, and the business of thinking up well-selected remarks is a serious matter.

Knowing this, we always relieve our drawing-room audiences of embarra.s.sment by making the remarks ourselves. The moment the last lingering whisper has completely died away from the strings, we turn as one man and begin to compliment the music. "We like that ending better than any other part of the whole thing," we say appreciatively. This lifts a load of anxiety from the minds of our hearers, and serves to break the hush.

The question of playing to guests in our own home is the subject on which our family _ensemble_ most nearly came to mutiny. Our father had a way, contrary to orders, of suggesting a little music when we had visitors. The rest of us objected to this, especially if the guests were people who did not play. Once, when an evening of hospitality to strangers was in store, our mother was giving us all our final instructions. She turned to our father last of all.

"Endicott," she began impressively, "this evening you mustn't say the word 'music' unless somebody else suggests it. If they want us to play, they will ask us."

Our father, a little grieved to think that any one should worry lest he do so strange a thing, promised to comply.

But that evening, finding the guests more and more congenial in the midst of firelight conversation, he turned to them cordially and said, "I know that this is just the time when you would enjoy a little music, but I have been told that I must not say the word unless you suggest it first."

The guests, highly diverted, rose to the occasion and begged prettily.

They said that they had been starving for some music all along. When visitors who do not really care for music have once been launched on the process of asking for it, the kindest thing to do is to play promptly something brief and sweet and trailing--some _Abendlied_ or _Alb.u.mblatt_, for instance, and have it over. In the presence of guests, such family crises must be tided over with neat persiflage. It was only after the company had gone that the mutiny took place.

But there is one kind of audience that we like the best of all.

Sometimes of an early summer evening, when our whole orchestra has gathered to rehea.r.s.e for a performance that we have in store, the relatives and friends of the players ask to be allowed to come and listen. We arrange the hammock and steamer-chairs in a screened corner outside the house, and there our listeners--perhaps the sister of the ba.s.s-viol, the business partner of the piccolo, and a neighbor or two--settle themselves comfortably under the windows. Then we play, interrupted only by an occasional shout from outside, when somebody requests an encore, or asks what that last thing was. Our steamer-chair audience has often begged us to announce the composer and the name of each selection as we go along, and we usually appoint somebody to do this, megaphoning the t.i.tles through the window. But before we have gone very far, we forget our audience. They lie there neglected, scattered on the lawn. The dew falls around them, the shadows gather over them, and they give up the attempt to attract our notice. We are rehearsing now, not performing, and our blood is up.

Sometimes we have a strong-minded guest who refuses to be treated in this way. He declines the steamer-chair, with steamer-rug and cushion, preferring to sit against the wall in a cramped corner of the room where we are playing. We a.s.sure him that the music sounds better from a distance, but he begs to be allowed to stay. He says that he likes to watch as well as listen. This does not disturb us; we are rather flattered if the truth were known. In fact, we know a little how he feels. There is a dramatic and pictorial value in the humblest orchestra, no matter how densely you populate your music-room. Usually the guest who enjoys this sight is a person who would like to play if he knew how--one who can join in the excitement when things are going well.

Like all amateurs, we do become excited. And when we are excited, we tend to play faster and faster, and louder and louder, unless something holds us up. "Pianissimo!" shouts the double-ba.s.s, fortissimo. Thus exhorted, we settle down just as earnestly, but with more attention to the waymarks and the phrasings of the score.

Probably it is at these moments that we do our very best. The ba.s.s-viol standing by the fireplace, his genial face unsmiling now, intent, takes the rich low harmony with great sweeps of his practised bow. Barbara, over against the music-cabinet, plays smoothly on, her dark old 'cello planted firmly, the shadow of her hair across its great brown pegs. Mr.

Billings, with pointed eyebrows arching steeply, pipes and carols above us like a lark. And through it all the vibrant foot of Mr. Bronson faithfully beats time.

"Why don't you get together and play like this often?" inquires the sister of the ba.s.s-viol, when the audience at last, with arms full of steamer-rugs and cushions, comes trailing in.

The piccolo, pa.s.sing sandwiches, looks up with hearty response. "Yes, why can't we?" he asks. "After the reception, let's try to keep it up."

The rest of us, fastening the covers around our instruments, give enthusiastic consent. "Every other Monday, let's meet without fail," we say. But in our hearts we know that we shall not. We shall all be busy--all sorts of things will happen to prevent--and the weeks will fly. Yet we know that sooner or later our trio will meet again--probably for a desperate rehearsal some months hence, just in time for the next event where we are asked to play.

THE RETURN OF A, B, C

That is, I used to hope that they were returning. My neighbor's small son, Tony, aged six, needed them. He needed them to learn to read with.

This was before I had any first-hand evidence about modern school methods. I saw school only through Tony.

Tony was able to read, "over to school," such excerpts as the following: "The gingerbreadboy went clickety-clack down the road." "Sail far, sail far, o'er the fabulous main!" "Consider, goat, consider!" "You have made a mistake, Mr. Alligator." Just why, I reflected, should "Mr. Alligator"

and "fabulous" be introduced to a pleasant child like Tony, who had not as yet been allowed to meet "cat," "dog," "hen," "red," "boy," "bad,"

and a great many other creatures really necessary to a little boy's existence?

His mother knew that Tony was not learning to read very fast. She argued with me a little on principle. She said that James Whitcomb Riley wrote "fabulous." I reminded her in a neighborly way that Mr. Milton wrote the "Areopagitica," thought by some to be a good sort, but that, until Tony knew his letters, the "Areopagitica" would be almost wasted on him. I would have stepped in at this point myself and ponied him a bit, for pure love, had it not been for the fact that I hated to have him get a sensible A, B, or C mixed up with such corrupting a.s.sociates as a considering goat or a mistaken alligator. And he would certainly have mixed them up. He would never have been able in this world to decide in his little mind what relation "consider" had to A,B,C. And he would have been quite excusable.

I began to think that his mother was too optimistic. She was trying to console herself by the fact that, if she should die, Tony could at least order gingerbread off a menu card. But could he? The sad fact that my neighbor overlooked was that he didn't know "gingerbread" when he saw it, but just "gingerbread_boy_"! Perhaps even at that, Tony might not have starved, for even gingerbread_boys_ are edible, if Tony really could have recognized that. But he couldn't. Not outside the confines of his "reading-book"--Heaven save the mark! A modern word-fiend tried to explain to me here, that, after having learned "gingerbreadboy," a child comes naturally by three words (and even four if they allowed "gin" in the school curriculum)--namely, "ginger," "bread," and "boy." But Tony didn't. I tried him. He looked upon "ginger" as an entire stranger, interesting in form, perhaps, but still foreign. Something, I was convinced, was wrong. And I attributed this state to the fact that Tony didn't know A, B, and C.

Just as I reached the high noon of this conviction, I was drawn by the most curious of circ.u.mstances into the business of teaching little children to read. I held the novel position of being besought to bring all my heresies and all my notions, and join the influenza-thinned ranks of the teaching profession. The Board of Education said that it was desperate. It must have been.

I suppose that no other power on earth could have converted me so quickly to the decried method, as my being forced, out of loyalty to my employers, to support it. I was plunged on the first day--not into "clickety-clack," but "slippety-slip." It was my first object lesson to hear the laughter of many little children, as the small gray cat swallowed slippety-slip in rapid succession the white goose, the cinnamon bear, the great, big pig, and others which have "slippety-slipped" my mind just now. It was easy to teach them which fantastic word said "slippety-slip." It was very hard to teach them which plain-faced word said "and." I was happy to find many fine old words ranging themselves in the same category as "slippety-slip."

"Goose" is intrinsically easier to learn than "duck"; "red" is a bagatelle beside "blue." But the easiest word of all is "slippety-slip."

I took notes of phenomena like these, for use later in dealing with critics who theorized as I had theorized on the day previous. I was not quite ready with any solution on this first day when a visiting mother a.s.sured me that she, when a girl, was wont to read much better when her book was open before her. Her son, on the contrary, read better, she told me, and with more interpretation and fine feeling, without his book. "People think," said my visitor, "that when a child has his book open and says aloud the words printed on that page, that he is reading.

He may be," she added mildly, "and then again, of course, he mayn't."

I determined that, when this logical lady should come again, her son should be reading. So I taught him to read. I taught him via the method I had disparaged; via "Mrs. Teapot," "Goosey-Poosey-Loosey," and the goat that would not go home, without once mentioning the names of A, B, or C. This boy is in the third grade now, skimming the "Literary Digest"

for material for his oral language.

The second step in my conversion occurred when one of the overworked teachers showed me hastily how to teach Phonics. She drew a flight of stairs on the blackboard, and on each step she placed a letter of the alphabet. I did not find "A" among them, but I discerned both B and C.

To my surprise, the little children knew these, but they called them (as nearly as the printed page can convey the sound) _buh_ and _kuh_. They called "R" _err_, and "H" they called _huh_.

When I reached home, I looked up a few letters in the Dictionary, and received new light. Of what use is it, after all, to know that "W" is called "Double-you," unless you know first the sound for which it stands? The Dictionary, in fact, explains that the proper sound of this letter is really a "half u" instead of a "double u." Certainly "W" is a more helpful tool to a child when he has been taught to pucker up his lips like the howling wind when he sees this letter coming, than when he has been taught to get set for a "d" sound which is not there. Why confuse a child's mind at first with what a letter is arbitrarily called by some one else? Surely it is more sensible to show him what noise to make when he sees it.

But I found that some of the children did not connect the delightful game of the blackboard stairs with their reading at all. Tony was among this number. Right here I was electrified to find out the real trouble with Tony. I found that it had not occurred to him that the letter "g,"

at the beginning of the word "good," for instance, could have any part in distinguishing this word from the Little Red Hen. I found also that many of the children were recognizing "good-day to you" wholly by the quaint little dash in the middle of "good-day." They shouted heartily "good-day to you" whenever I showed them any word containing a hyphen.

To remedy this difficulty, I abstracted Phonics bodily from my afternoon session, and inserted it directly before the reading period in the morning. In fact, I allowed a few Phonics to spill over into Reading, and commenced to read a little before the children were quite finished with the staircase. I can say that the greatest triumphal moment of my life was when an entire cla.s.s saw, independently and suddenly and of themselves, that "ice-cream" could not possibly be "good-day to you."

And the fact that the children now knew these apart by a phonetic tool did not prevent them from saying "good-day to you" just as cordially and just as fast as before. Moreover, they had not compelled the school system to wait for them to spell out the words letter by letter.

This is the only stage in a modern phrase-and-sentence method which contains a pitfall. If this is solidly bridged, most children will learn to read more understandingly than we used to. They will read twice as well, and three times as fast.

At the end of the school year, after Tony had read nineteen books, I did throw in the alphabet itself as a cla.s.sic. We even sang it to the good old-fashioned tune.

Tony will use A, B, and C, in the Second Grade to spell with, and in the Fourth Grade to look up words in the Dictionary with; but he did not need them, after all, in the First Grade, to learn to read with.

UNDERSTANDING THE HEALTHY

The healthy in all centuries have misunderstood the sick. In the days when sickness was supposed to be the result of possession by devils, the healthy gathered around the invalid, beating upon drums. When all disease was supposed to be the chastening of the Lord, they gathered at the bedside again, teaching repentance of sins. And in our own generation, they come again around the sufferer telling him to take his mind off himself.

I myself, being healthy, have never been the victim of that form of ministration. I have simply observed the effect of it on others. And since there is no hope of converting the healthy from this habit, the next best thing is to explain the obscure workings of the healthy mind.

Of course, no two healthy people are quite alike, and general statements about any great composite type are dangerous. But no matter how divergent their styles, all up-to-date, unspoiled, healthy persons can be trusted to make certain stock remarks to or about the sick. The context may vary, but sooner or later the following phrases will crop up: "pulling yourself together"; "bracing up"; "standing a little real hardship"; "forgetting all about your aches and pains"; "people who never have _time_ to be sick"; "people who are worse off than you are"; and, "taking your mind off yourself."

At any one of these cheery phrases, the spirited sick man feels his gorge begin to rise. He knows that if his gorge rises, so will his temperature. With a mighty effort he swallows his temper, and his temperature goes up anyway at the exertion. All this time he knows that his visitor meant well, and he despises himself for his irritation. He has no way of defending himself, for, if he should describe how ill he really is, would not that convict him of having his mind on himself, of craving sympathy, of "enjoying poor health"? Over and over the words of his visitor go ringing in his ears--words intended tactfully to stimulate recuperation. "It's fine to see you looking so well. All you need to do now is to get something to take up your mind. I know how hard it will be, for I have been there myself, but circ.u.mstances were such that _I_ just _had_ to brace up. It would be the best thing in the world for you if you only had to rough it a little."