Hildegarde's Neighbors Part 10

"I don't know exactly what I said,--some rubbish about how much I cared for it; but I stammered mostly, and got all kinds of colours. I guess you can tell pretty much how I behaved, though I really am getting to be not quite so much of a m.u.f.f. Anyhow, he seemed to understand, and nodded, and said, 'Give me now the violin, for there are things you understand not yet in the piece.'

"Oh, Hilda! he took my violin in his own hands, and played for me.

Think of it! the greatest master in the world, all alone with me there, and playing like--like--well, I don't know how to say what I mean, so you'll have to imagine it for yourself. He went all through it, stopping once in a while to explain to me, and to describe this or that shade of expression or turn of the wrist. It was the most splendid lesson any one ever had, I believe. But that is not the best, and I hardly like to tell even you the rest. You may think I am just bluffing, and anyhow,--but it is the truth, so--well, after about half an hour my master came in, and of course he was delighted, and highly honoured, and bowing and sc.r.a.ping and all. But the maestro came and put his hand on my shoulder, and said, 'Friend, will you give me up this pupil, hein?'

"I don't mind if you don't believe it; I didn't myself, but thought I was asleep and dreaming it all. 'I will give you in exchange two others,' he said. 'The fat English lady has shortness of breath, and cannot keep my hours of work, and the young Russian makes eyes at me, which is not to be endured. Will you take them, both very rich, and give me in exchange this child?'

"Of course there is only one answer, you know; it is like when a king asks for anything. And besides, Herr Geiger is so good and kind, he was really perfectly delighted at my having the great chance,--the chance of a lifetime. So I am going this afternoon to take my first regular lesson from the great master of the world, and I don't deserve it, Hilda, and I wonder why everything is done so for me, and such happiness given to a fellow like me, when there are hundreds of other fellows who deserve it a great deal more. I know what you and your mother would say, and I do feel it, and I am thankful, I truly think, with all my heart, and I hope I shall be a better fellow in every way, and try to make some return. I couldn't go without telling you. Of course I wrote a line to the governor first. He will be so happy! And of course if it hadn't been for him, I never should have had any music, or any violin, or anything; and without you and your mother, Hilda, I never should have come here, that is certain. So I don't see very clear, sometimes, when I think about you and him.

"Time for the lesson now. Good-bye! I am the happiest fellow in the world! Best love to your mother, and uncle--no! shall write to him by this mail.

"Always your affectionate

"JACK.

"P.S. Lesson glorious! he is really the greatest man in the world, I don't care who the next is. I didn't thank you for your last letter. Of course I felt for a minute as if my gas-balloon had bust, when you told me that the lovely Rose was going to marry Dr.

Flower; but I guess it is all right. You see, she must be very sweet and all that; but after all, I never saw her, and you say she has no ear for music, and I am afraid that would have been a pretty bad thing, don't you think so yourself? So I guess it is all right, and I am as jolly as a coot. Awfully jolly about the new neighbours turning out such bricks. Do any of them play or sing? JACK.

"P.P.S. I fought my first duel yesterday, with a chap who slanged the U. S. I got a cut on my left arm, but then, I cut a little slice off his ear, so I was all right. J."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Grahame; "a duel! The naughty, naughty boy! Those student duels are not apt to be serious affairs nowadays, I believe, but still it seems a dreadful thing. What will the Colonel say when he hears it?"

"He will very likely be pleased as Punch, as Jack says," rejoined Hildegarde. "To have his milksop fight a duel would probably seem to him a very encouraging thing. And of course, mammina, it isn't like a real, dreadful duel, is it? I mean, it is more a kind of horrid bear-play? But oh, to think of our Jack cutting off a piece of a man's ear! It almost spoils the beautiful other part of it.

No, nothing can spoil that. Dear, delightful, stupid, glorious old Jack! I always knew he had genius. When shall we see the Colonel?"

"Possibly to-night, at the Merryweathers'," said her mother.

"These pleasant little tea-parties seem to take in all our little circle. See! there come the riders back again, Gerald and Phil racing, as usual. Hear them shout! Certainly, never a family was better named."

Hildegarde came up behind her mother, and put her arms lightly round her neck.

"I prefer my pea!" she said. And the two women laughed and kissed each other and went on with their work.

CHAPTER IX.

MERRY WEATHER INDOORS.

It rained that evening, so the plans for tennis were brought to naught; but the evening was cheerful enough, in spite of the pouring rain outside. The wide, book-strewn parlour of Pumpkin House was bright with many lamps, and twinkling with laughing faces of boys and girls. Mr. Merryweather, cheerfully resigned to "company," possessed his soul and his pipe (being duly a.s.sured that Mrs. Grahame liked the smell of tobacco), and the Colonel puffed his cigar beside him. A little fire crackled on the hearth, "just for society," Mrs. Merryweather said, and most of the windows were wide open, making the air fresh and sweet with the fragrance of wet vines and flowers. The two ladies were deep in household matters, each finding it very pleasant to have a companion of her own age, though each reflecting that the children were much better company in the long run. The children themselves were playing games, with gusts of laughter and little shrieks and shouts of glee. They had had "Horned Lady," and w.i.l.l.y's head was a forest of paper horns, skilfully twisted. Hugh had just gone triumphantly through the whole list, "a sneezing elephant, a punch in the head, a rag, a tatter, a good report, a bad report, a cracked saucepan, a fuzzy tree-toad, a rat-catcher, a well-greaved Greek, etc., etc., etc.

"There are no thoughts in this game, beloved," said the child when he had finished, turning to Hildegarde. "My head turns round, but it is empty inside."

"Good for Hugh!" cried Phil. "Just the same with me, Hugh. It makes me feel all fuzzy inside my head, like the tree-toad."

"You ARE like a tree-toad!" said Gerald. "That is the resemblance that has haunted me, and I could not make it out, because as a rule tree-toads are not fuzzy. I thank thee, Jew--I mean Hugh--for teaching me that word. My brother, the tree-toad! Every one will know whom I mean."

"Just as they know you as the 'one as is a little wantin',"

retorted Phil. "Just think, Miss Hilda, Jerry and I spent a week together at a house at Pemaquid, and Jerry left his sponge behind him when he came away. Well, and when the captain of the tug brought it over to the island where the rest of us were, he said one of the boys had left it, the one as was a little wantin'. And he said it was a pity about him, and asked if there warn't nothin'

they could do for his wits."

"That was because he heard me reciting my Greek cram to the cow,"

said Gerald. "Most responsive animal I ever saw, that cow, and mooed in purest Attic every time I twisted her tail. And how about the pitch-kettle, my gentle shepherd? Was I ever seen, I ask the a.s.sembled family,--WAS I ever seen with a pitch-kettle on my head instead of a hat?"

"Oh, Hilda!" exclaimed Bell; "you ought to have seen Phil. He had been pitching the canoe,--this was ever so long ago, of course,--and he thought it would be great fun to put the pitch-kettle on his head. He thought it was quite dry, you see. So he did, and went round with it for a little, so pleased and amused; and then he saw some ladies coming, and tried to take it off, and it wouldn't come. Oh dear! how we did laugh!"

"Yes, Miss Hilda, I should think they did!" cried Phil, indignantly. "Sat there and chuckled like great apes, instead of helping a fellow. And I had to crawl under barrels for about half a mile, so that those people wouldn't see me."

"Poor Phil!" cried compa.s.sionate Hildegarde. "And did you get it off at last?"

"First we tried b.u.t.ter," he said, "but that wouldn't stir it. Then they gave me a bath of sweet oil, and put flour in my hair, and hot water, and turtle soup, and I don't know what not; and the more things they did, the faster the old thing stuck. So at last we had to call the Mater, and she took the scissors and cut it off."

"Oh, meus oculus!" cried Gerald. "Do you remember how that kettle looked, with a fringe of hair all around it? Half his hyacinth bed on one fell kettle! He ought to have sung a 'Lock-aber no more!'"

"And we ought to have sung 'Philly, put the kettle on!'" cried Gertrude.

"Toots, don't exhaust your brain!" said Gerald, gravely. "You may need it some time; there is no knowing. No knowing, but much nosing!" he added. "Could you move the princ.i.p.al part of your person, my child? It casts such a deep shadow that I cannot see myself think."

"Will some one please tell me what is the matter with Gertrude's nose?" asked Hildegarde, innocently. "You are always talking about it; it seems to me a very good nose indeed."

"Dear Hilda!" exclaimed Gertrude; "what a nice girl you are!"

"That is just the point, Miss Hilda," said Gerald. "It is an excellent nose. Take it as a nose, it has no equal in the country, we have been a.s.sured. If there is one thing this family is proud of, it is Gertrude's nose. We may not be clever, or rich, or beautiful, but we can always fall back on the nose; there's plenty of room on it for the whole family."

"Why," put in Phil, "the Pater has been offered a dollar a pound for that nose, and he wouldn't look at it."

"He couldn't see it," said Bell; "the nose was in the way."

"Why, one day we had been in bathing," said Phil, "and when we came back, Toots hung her nose out of the window to dry, and went to sleep and forgot it; and will you believe it? a fellow came along and climbed right up it, just like 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,' you know. Ah! Oh, I say!"

At this outrage, Gertrude rose, and fell upon her brother tooth and nail. She was a powerful child, and at the shock of her onset, the seat of Phil's chair gave way, and he "sat through" like little Silver-hair, and came suddenly to the floor, his head and legs sticking up helplessly through the empty frame. The young people were so overcome with laughter that no one could help him; but Roger, who had been hidden in a convenient corner with an absorbing monograph on trilobites that had just arrived by mail, came forward and pulled his brother out.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Merryweather, looking up. "Philip, my dear, it is strange that none of you can remember not to sit in that chair."

"What is the matter with the chair?" inquired Mr. Merryweather.

"The seat has been loose for a long time," said his wife. "It always comes down when any one sits in it."

"And could it not be mended?"

"Why, yes," said Mrs. Merryweather, evidently receiving a new idea. "I suppose it might be mended, Miles. Do you know, I never thought of that! Certainly; it shall be mended. Bell, remind me to-morrow to get some glue. That is one of the set of chairs that came from my father's house, you remember, Miles, and the seats were always loose. One night my mother had a party, and your Uncle Frederick went round before the people came, and set the seats forward in the frames, so that whoever sat down would go through at once. The governor of the State was the first to take his seat, and he went directly through to the floor, just as Phil did now.

My father was excessively angry, and Frederick and I spent the next day in bed, but we thought it was worth the punishment."

"These are improving reminiscences, my dear Miranda!" said Mr.

Merryweather.

"Oh! but what do you think mamma did this morning?" cried Gertrude. "May I tell them, mamma? Do you mind?"