"Oh, if I only could!" she whispered, and pressed the chord again, rapturously listening to the vibrations as they died away in the quiet room. Then she tiptoed out and closed the door behind her.
During the entire hour of that first Saturday morning lesson Mrs. Martin hovered near the parlor door, her hands and feet refusing to perform their accustomed duties. The low murmur of the teacher's voice and an occasional series of notes were to Hester the mysterious rites before a sacred shrine, and she listened in reverent awe. When Miss Gale had left the house, Mrs. Martin hurried to Penelope's side.
"How did it go? What did she say? Play me what she taught you," she urged excitedly.
Penelope tossed a consequential head and gave her mother a scornful glance.
"Pooh! mother, the first lesson ain't much. I've got to practice."
"Of course," acknowledged Hester in conciliation; "but how?—what?"
"That—and that—and from there to there," said Penelope, indicating with a pink forefinger certain portions of the page before her.
"Oh!" breathed Hester, regarding the notes with eager eyes. Then timidly, "Play—that one."
With all the importance of absolute certainty Penelope struck C.
"And that one."
Penelope's second finger hit F.
"And that—and that—and that," swiftly demanded Hester.
Penelope's cheeks grew pink, but her fingers did not falter. Hester drew a long breath.
"Oh, how quick you've learned 'em!" she exclaimed.
Her daughter hesitated a tempted moment.
"Well—I—I learned the notes in school," she finally acknowledged, looking sidewise at her mother.
But even this admission did not lessen for Hester the halo of glory about
Penelope's head. She drew another long breath.
"But what else did Miss Gale say? Tell me everything—every single thing," she reiterated hungrily.
That was not only Penelope's first lesson, but Hester's. The child, flushed and important with her sudden promotion from pupil to teacher, scrupulously repeated each point in the lesson, and the woman, humble and earnestly attentive, listened with bated breath. Then, Penelope, still airily consequential, practiced for almost an hour.
Monday, when the children were at school, Hester stole into the parlor and timidly seated herself at the piano.
"I think—I am almost sure I could do it," she whispered, studying with eager eyes the open book on the music rack. "I—I'm going to try, anyhow!" she finished resolutely.
And Hester did try, not only then, but on Tuesday, Wednesday, and thus until Saturday—that Saturday which brought with it a second lesson.
The weeks passed swiftly after that. Hester's tasks seemed lighter and her burdens less grievous since there was now that ever-present refuge—the piano. It was marvelous what a multitude of headaches and heartaches five minutes of scales, even, could banish; and when actual presence at the piano was impossible, there were yet memory and anticipation left her.
For two of these weeks Penelope practiced her allotted hour with a patience born of the novelty of the experience. The third week the "hour" dwindled perceptibly, and the fourth week it was scarcely thirty minutes long.
"Come, dearie, don't forget your practice," Hester sometimes cautioned anxiously.
"Oh, dear me suz!" Penelope would sigh, and Hester would watch her with puzzled eyes as she disconsolately pulled out the piano stool.
"Penelope," she threatened one day, "I shall certainly stop your lessons—you don't half appreciate them." But she was shocked and frightened at the relief that so quickly showed in her young daughter's eyes. Hester never made that threat again, for if Penelope's lessons stopped—
As the weeks lengthened into months, bits of harmony and snatches of melody became more and more frequent in Penelope's lessons, and the "exercises" were supplemented by occasional "pieces"—simple, yet boasting a name. But when Penelope played "Down by the Mill," one heard only the notes—accurate, rhythmic, an excellent imitation; when Hester played it, one might catch the whir of the wheel, the swish of the foaming brook, and almost the spicy smell of the sawdust, so vividly was the scene brought to mind.
Many a time, now, the old childhood dreams came back to Hester, and her fingers would drift into tender melodies and minor chords not on the printed page, until all the stifled love and longing of those dreary, colorless years of the past found voice at her finger-tips.
The stately marches and the rollicking dances of the cloud music came easily at her beck and call—now grave, now gay; now slow and measured, now tripping in weird harmonies and gay melodies.
Hester's blood quickened and her cheeks grew pink. Her eyes lost their yearning look and her lips their wistful curves.
Every week she faithfully took her lesson of Penelope, and she practiced only that when the children were about. It was when they were at school and she was alone that the great joy of this new-found treasure of improvising came to her, and she could set free her heart and soul on the ivory keys.
She was playing thus one night—forgetting time, self, and that Penelope would soon be home from school—when the child entered the house and stopped, amazed, in the parlor doorway. As the last mellow note died into silence, Penelope dropped her books and burst into tears.
"Why, darling, what is it?" cried Hester. "What can be the matter?"
"I—I don't know," faltered Penelope, looking at her mother with startled eyes. "Why—why did n't you tell me?"
"Tell you?"
"That—that you could—p-play that way! I—I did n't know," she wailed with another storm of sobs, rushing into her mother's arms.
Hester's clasp tightened about the quivering little form and her eyes grew luminous.
"Dearie," she began very softly, "there was once a little girl—a little girl like you. She was very, very poor, and all her days were full of work. She had no piano, no music lessons—but, oh, how she longed for them! The trees and the grass and the winds and the flowers sang all day in her ears, but she could n't tell what they said. By and by, after many, many years, this little girl grew up and a dear little baby daughter came to her. She was still very, very poor, but she saved and scrimped, and scrimped and saved, for she meant that this baby girl should not long and long for the music that never came. She should have music lessons."
"Was it—me?" whispered Penelope, with tremulous lips.
Hester drew a long breath.
"Yes, dear. I was the little girl long ago, and you are the little girl of to-day. And when the piano came, Penelope, I found in it all those songs that the winds and the trees used to sing to me. Now the sun shines brighter and the birds sing sweeter—and all this beautiful world is yours—all yours. Oh, Penelope, are n't you glad?"
Penelope raised a tear-wet face and looked into her mother's shining eyes.
"Glad?—oh, mother!" she cried fervently. Then very softly, "Mother—do you think—could you teach me?—Oh, I want to play just like that—just like that!"
The Folly of Wisdom
Until his fiftieth year Jason Hartsorn knew nothing whatever about the position of his liver, kidneys, lungs, heart, spleen, and stomach except that they must be somewhere inside of him; then he attended the auction of old Doctor Hemenway's household effects and bid off for