Patchwork Part 31

After dinner Mr. Lee played again. Of course I enjoyed that. When I praised his playing he said he heard I'm a real genius and asked me to sing for them. Mr. Krause, one of the best teachers of music in the city, is a friend of Royal and Virginia thinks he would be the very one to teach me. Mr. Lee wrote to Mr. Krause this summer and the music teacher promised to take me for a pupil if I have a voice worth the trouble. Virginia had prepared me for my meeting with him. Seems he's queer, odd, cranky and painfully frank. But he knows how to teach music so well that many would-be singers pray to be taken into his studio. Mr.

Lee said yesterday that Mr. Krause was expected home from his vacation in a few days and then he'd arrange an interview. I trembled when he said that. What if the great teacher did not like my voice!

To-night when Mr. Lee asked me to sing I selected a simple song. As I sat down before the baby grand piano the words of the old song "Sweet and Low" came to me. I would sing that until I gained courage and confidence to sing a harder selection. I played from memory. As I sang I was back again at home, singing to my father at the close of the day.

As the last words died on my lips and I turned on the chair a man, a stranger to me, appeared in the room. He hurried unceremoniously to the piano and greeted me, "You can sing!"

I stared at him. He was an odd-looking, active little man of about fifty with keen blue eyes that bored into one like a gimlet.

Mr. Lee came toward us. "Mr. Krause," he exclaimed, and presented to me the music master, the teacher for whom I had dreaded so to sing! I was filled with inarticulate gladness.

"Mr. Krause," I cried, grasping his outstretched hand in my old impetuous way, "do you mean it? Can I learn to sing?"

"I said so--yes. You can sing. You need to learn how to use your voice but the voice is there."

"I'm so glad. I'll work----" I couldn't say any more. My joy was too great to be expressed in words. I looked mutely into the wrinkled face of the man.

"Royal said he had found a songbird," he went on smiling, "but I was afraid he didn't know the difference between that and an owl--I see he did. I'll be glad to have you for a pupil. Royal can bring you to my studio to-morrow at eleven."

Mr. Krause stayed a while longer and the sitting-room was gay with laughter and bright conversation. I think I heard little of it, though, for the words, "You can sing!" kept ringing in my ears and crowding out all other sounds.

I can sing! Mr. Krause has told me I can sing! And I will sing! Some day all the world may stop to hear!

CHAPTER XIX

DIARY--THE FIRST LESSON

_September 20._

I HAD my first music lesson to-day. Mr. Lee called for me at the boarding-house and took me down-town to the studio. After he left I expected Mr. Krause to begin at once on the do, ra, me, fa, sol, la, si, do. But he thought differently!

He sat facing me, looking at me till I felt like running. "And so," he said quietly, "you want to learn to sing."

"Yes," was all I could say.

"Well, you have a voice. If you want to work like all great singers have had to work you can be a singer. You may not set the world afire with your fame but you'll be worth hearing. You are Pennsylvania Dutch?"

I nodded. What under the sun did Pennsylvania Dutch have to do with my becoming a singer? I was provoked. I didn't come to the city and pay a music teacher to ask me foolish questions.

"That is good," he went on calmly. "The Pennsylvania Dutch are not afraid of work and that is what you need. The road to success in music is like the road to success in any other thing, long and hard and up-hill most of the way. Now that Pennsylvania Dutch is a funny language. It is neither Dutch nor English nor German but is like hash, a little of this and a little of that. Do you speak it?"

I said I have spoken it all my life but wished I had never been taught it.

"Why?" he asked.

"Oh"--I couldn't quite veil my irritation--"it perverts our English."

"Nothing uncommon," he answered, smiling. "Every part of this great country has some peculiarities of speech common to that particular section and laughed at in the other sections. Now we will go on with the lesson."

When he really did begin to teach I found him a wonder. I'm going to enjoy, thoroughly enjoy, my music lessons.

Mr. Lee called for me after the lesson. I told him I could find the way back to the boarding-house alone, but he said he'd consider it a pleasure and privilege to call for me. He has the nicest manners! He never needs to flounder around for the right thing to say, it just slips from his tongue like b.u.t.ter. Aunt Maria always says, "look out for them smooth apple-sa.s.s talkers," but I'm sure Mr. Lee is a gentleman and just the right kind for a country girl to know.

When he called at the studio this morning I felt proud to walk away with him. He suggested riding home but I told him I'd rather walk, at least part of the way. We started up Chestnut Street. What a wonderful place that is! Such lovely stores I've never seen. I'm going to sneak away some day and visit every one that has women's belongings for sale. And the clothes I saw on Chestnut Street--on the women, I mean! My own wardrobe certainly is plain and ordinary compared with the things I saw women wear to-day. I couldn't help saying to Mr. Lee, "What lovely clothes Philadelphia women wear!" He smiled that wonderful smile and said, "Miss Metz, a diamond has no need of a glittering case, it has sufficient brilliancy itself." I caught his meaning, I couldn't help it--he meant me! Now I know I'm no beauty, but perhaps if I had clothes like those I saw to-day I'd be more attractive. I wonder if I'll get them; they must cost lots of money.

As we walked along Mr. Lee told me he knows I'll have a wonderful year in the city, and that he is going to help it be the gladdest, merriest one I've ever had.

"Oh, you're good," I said.

"It must be that goodness inspires goodness," he replied.

I didn't know what to answer. Men up home never say such things, at least I never heard them. Phares couldn't think of such things to say and David never made a "pretty speech" in his life. I know he thinks nice things about me sometimes but he wouldn't word them like Royal Lee does. I didn't want Mr. Lee to think I'm uncommonly good, I told him I'm not.

"Not good?" He laughed at the idea. "Why, you are just a sweet, lovely young thing knowing nothing of evil."

"Oh!" I said, feeling stupid before him, "you're too polite! I never met any one like you. But I want to ask you about cards, playing cards.

I can't see that they are wrong but Aunt Maria and my father and all my friends up home think they are wicked. Aunt Maria would rather part with her right hand than play a game of cards."

Mr. Lee laughed and said he's surprised that I am willing to accept the beliefs of others; can't I decide for myself what is wrong or right? Did I want to be narrow and goody-goody?

Of course I don't want to be like that, and I told him so.

He laughed again, a low, soft laugh. I never heard a man laugh like that before. When daddy laughs he laughs out loud, the kind of laugh you join in when you hear it. And David laughs like that too, a merry laugh that sounds, as he says, like it's coming clean from his boots. But Mr. Lee's laugh is different. I don't like it as well as the other kind, though it fascinates me. He said he knows I can't change my ideas in a night but he depends upon my good sense to decide what is right for me to do. He asked if I thought Virginia and her mother are wicked. They have played cards, danced, gone to theatres, all their lives. If I hope to have a really enjoyable time in the city I must do the same. He said, too, that I'll soon see that many of the teachings of the country churches are antiquated and entirely too narrow for this day.

Dancing--I shuddered at the word, but I didn't tell him how I feel about it. Aunt Maria says dancing is even worse than playing cards. Why did he tempt me? I don't want to do wicked things, but when he mentioned forbidden pleasures I felt, somehow, that I wanted to do what Virginia does and have a good time with her and her friends. That would be dreadful! What am I thinking of! Is my head turned already? Can the evil of the world have exerted its influence upon me so soon? Of course, if I become a great singer I'll naturally have to live a life different from the narrow, restricted life of the farm. I must live a broader, freer life. But for a while, at least, I'll have to be the same old Phbe Metz. I tried to tell Mr. Lee something like that, and he quoted,

"If you become a nun, dear, A friar I will be; In any cell you run, dear, Pray look behind for me."

Are city men always free like that? Is it the way of the new world I have entered? Before I could think of a suitable answer he said lightly, "But before you turn nun let me buy you some flowers."

We stopped at a floral shop. Such flowers! I've never seen their equal!

I exclaimed in many O's as I paused by the window, but I felt my cheeks flush at the idea of having him buy any of the lovely flowers for me.

"Come inside," he said. "What do you like?"

"I love them all," I told him as we stood before the array of blossoms.

"I think I like the yellow rosebuds best, though. We have some at home on the farm but they bloom only in June."

I detected an odd smile on his lips. What was wrong? Had I committed a breach of etiquette? Was it wrong to mention farms in a city floral shop? But his courteous, attentive manner returned in an instant. He watched me pin the yellow roses on my coat, smiled, and led me outside again. I felt proud as any queen, for those were the first flowers any man ever bought for me.

CHAPTER XX

DIARY--SEEING THE CITY