Part 4

With the collapse of her plans to act, other means of retrieving the summer from “total loss” occasionally occurred to her. A job. Audrey, in a letter, described hers with such loving detail as quite to overshadow the meager news about her erstwhile boy friend.

A job? Judy tried, but her disappointing attempts always followed the same pattern.

“Have you any experience?” “None?” “Sorry.” or “We have all the help we need. You must apply early in Aspen, long before the season.”

Judy surrendered. Actually she was enjoying this unexpected leisure. Lonesome sometimes? Yes, but free, free to wander about....

Entering the shop of Berko Studio, she exhausted the patience of the elderly salesman before she selected her two views of Aspen and the mountains nearby. How much there was to see in this wonderful world of the Rockies! A thought flashed through her mind. Why not come back with an article for the _The Plow_, her high school paper? The October issue was always lavishly devoted to a Vacation Series.

“My Summer in Aspen.” She shook her head. What had she done that was interesting? Precisely nothing—yet.

“Aspen Past and Present.” Decidedly better, she thought. But it had its drawbacks. You must have an encyclopedia or some means to acquire information. She meditated. She had finished every book she owned. The library! She slung her bag over her shoulder, thankful that Aspen had one!

She reached the library in a half-hour’s brisk walk and found to her surprise it was an insignificant corner of a large red brick structure, “The Aspen Bank.” Thinking she must be mistaken, she circled the block only to discover the bank building had still another entrance with an inconspicuous sign, “Wheeler Opera House, 1881.” She stood there puzzled. Could this be the opera house where world-famous singers and actors had appeared in the old mining days? Why, only the other night her father had brought home some colored photographs. Together they had fairly drooled over the plush and gold interior, more than four hundred gilt chairs in the orchestra, stage boxes upholstered in red plush. Her mother had remarked with chilling candor, “It’s nothing like it used to be. It was twice burnt down and twice restored.... We’re going there on Thursday night. The Juillard Quartet is giving a Lecture—Recital. You’ll see it then.”

“It’ll be a wonderful evening,” her father promised, “and I’ll take you on a personally conducted tour of the House.”

Judy retraced her steps. The Opera House could wait.

A single room lined with books—that was the library! A placard prominently placed on the wall cautioned “Silence.” The only person in the room besides herself was the librarian, sitting at her desk and looking rather forbidding in her horn-rimmed eyeglasses.

Judy searched the shelves. Still under the spell of the old mining days, she selected _Aspen and the Silver Kings_. It was a large, heavy book, its text liberally interwoven with pictures. She sat down at a table to examine it more leisurely. Mule teams with heavy wagons carrying the silver ore over Independence Pass, a road thirteen thousand feet high. A trip over this scenic wonder was, even to the passengers in Kit Carson’s stage coach, a fearsome thing. A hut near one of the mine shafts. Five men playing cards. A snow slide and the five were buried under twenty-five feet of snow.

She turned the pages. The coming of the first railroad, a queer-looking train pulled by two engines, smoke belching from its odd-looking funnels; people rushed down to the depot with flags, yelling themselves hoarse. It was a great day. Ore could now be moved by train!

Judy cheerfully skipped the pages. She still hoped for something more personal, maybe romantic. It was the human element she anxiously sought.

She read on. Under the intriguing title, “Horace Tabor, the man who preferred love and Baby Doe to his silver empire,” Judy recognized romance. This was the sort of pioneer life that appealed to her!

She looked at Tabor’s picture, a tall, well-built man with fine features and a long silky mustache. While not exactly a Don Juan, he was devotedly loved by two women, both of them interesting characters.

Augusta, his wife, came with Horace Tabor from Maine. In Leadville they opened a general store and in a short time Horace became postmaster and then mayor of the seventy shanties that comprised Leadville at that time. Augusta, even as the mayor’s wife, took in boarders to help with the family budget. Tabor generously staked the miners to food, picks, shovels, dynamite, anything they needed to get on with their prospecting. Augusta objected to his easy-going ways. Money was hard to make and they often quarreled.

But Tabor in staking the miners got a share in whatever they found. The mines began to pay off and Tabor became rich. From “Little Pittsburgh” alone he made five hundred thousand dollars in fifteen months. He bought other mines. He was civic-minded, gave Leadville the Opera House and a Grand Opera House to Denver, was spoken of as the future United States Senator. But the Tabors were unhappy and their quarrels increased.

At the age of forty-seven he met the beautiful blonde, Mrs. Harvey Doe, known as Baby Doe. It was love at first sight! Tabor begged Augusta to give him a divorce. She refused. He offered her mines, properties. “Never,” she repeated. After five years of wrangling in court, she gave him the divorce and accepted the mines. “Some day,” she told the newspapers, “Tabor will return to me when that blonde hussy grows tired of him.”

Judy wondered what became of Baby Doe. No doubt, somewhere among the pages of the book something more would be told.

She went over to the desk. “I’d like to take this book home.” The librarian looked at the title and raised her eyebrows. “Don’t you think this is a little technical?” she smiled indulgently. “We have a copy of _Lorna Doone_, _Jane Eyre_.”

“Thank you,” Judy smiled, “but I read those.”

“Dickens?” The librarian suggested helpfully.

“This book’s history, isn’t it?” Judy said, holding the book possessively. “I like history and since I’m staying in Aspen, I think I ought to look into—”

“Very well,” the librarian said kindly. “How shall I make out the card? There’s a deposit of one dollar, which will be returned to you when you leave Aspen.”

“A dollar!” Judy exclaimed. To give up so much money even if only temporarily—she emptied the contents of her bag on the librarian’s desk, although she knew all the time that it contained only twenty-five cents.

“May I take the book for a quarter and bring the rest of it tomorrow?”

“No, dear. You come tomorrow and in the meantime I’ll put the book aside for you, although,” she added with a smile, “no one has taken it from the shelf in years.” Her smile was so friendly, Judy wondered how she could have thought her grim and forbidding.

Judy stood there in a quandary. It was much too early to go anywhere for her lunch and she no longer wished to remain in the library. The Wheeler Opera House again obtruded itself upon her thoughts. It was just around the block. Since she was here—

“Miss...” Judy began. “Wilkes,” the librarian finished for her.

“Miss Wilkes,” Judy began again, “would it be all right for me to go into the Opera House now? That is, is one permitted to just go in to look around?”

“Yes, of course. The entrance is at the extreme end of the bank building. There’s a sign, ‘Wheeler Opera House.’”

“Yes, I saw the sign.”

“The Opera House is at the very top of the building. It’s a steep climb and the door may be locked, but you can try.”

Judy felt grateful to the librarian who had assisted her in this happy solution. She could spend an hour “exploring,” her favorite expression for any walk or errand in Aspen. She reached the entrance of the Opera House and ran up the wooden steps that led into the hall. It was dingy, not in the least what she had expected. An enormous, an apparently never-ending flight of stairs appeared ahead of her. Worse than anything was the deafening sound of musical instruments coming at her like waves from every part of the building, like a giant orchestra forever tuning up. As she stood there irresolute a pianist could be heard, the music coming from under the staircase. For a little while it drowned out the din of the other players.

A light now dawned on Judy. This was where the students practiced! She recalled her father speaking of them as the lucky ones who didn’t have to go to private homes such as theirs. He surely must have been joking! Bank, library, practice rooms, and Opera House, all in one old brick building! Her eyes measured the staircase. She began to climb and increased her speed to get there quickly. By the time she reached the landing, she was out of breath. More doors leading to more practice rooms. If anything, the cacophony had increased.

Another staircase stretched ahead, seemingly to go to the roof. She slowly ascended. The sounds of the instruments grew muffled, then almost ceased. On the landing there was only one door, marked “Entrance.” She gently turned the knob, pushed the massive door, and stepped within. There was a prolonged whine as the door closed behind her. She stood there, blinking at the glare of white lights on the stage. Four musicians were sitting before their music stands and were playing with such absorption that her mouselike entrance went unnoticed. A quartet—she recognized the instruments.

She looked about her diffidently. A glow from the windows in the balcony shed a soft light over the auditorium. She saw the walls, papered in deep red embossed with gold medallions. But there were no gold and plush boxes, nor hundreds of gilded chairs!

She couldn’t remain standing there like a statue. If she sat down in one of the orchestra seats, she might be seen. The balcony would be best; besides, from that point of vantage she could see everything better. She moved quietly along the wall, tip-toed up the circular stairs, and gently lowered a seat. The hinge snapped and the seat fell with a bang. The quartet was playing softly, which made matters worse, and only when it began its brilliant finale did she slide into the seat. She looked about her. It was easy to picture the one-time audience, all satin and brocade, glittering with diamonds and jewels. She was jolted out of her pleasant fancies when one of the musicians stepped forward to address the empty auditorium.

“In order to give the student body and our guests some greater insight into the music of Bartok, each member of the quartet will play a solo passage and follow it with his interpretation. In this way, we feel that those unfamiliar with the work of Bartok will learn to understand its profound meaning and—”

The voice of each of the successive players was pleasant. They explained long and difficult passages, preceded by equally long and difficult excerpts from the music. Judy sighed. And this is what her father had promised would be a wonderful evening! She sat there, her lips compressed. If this is what the Juillard Quartet was going to play Thursday night, wild horses wouldn’t drag her here again!

Her eyes ached from the harsh lights on stage. One could hear as well with eyes shut. Her father often did. The musicians’ faces, their voices and their music faded, then melted into an exciting vision....

She recognized immediately the figure of Horace Tabor. His thick, silky mustache was unmistakable. And that was Augusta, his wife, as she upbraided him as she swept the stage, her long, black skirt swishing about her, her eyes flashing, her hair like a tower on her head.

“Is that how you repay me for the many years of hard work, traipsing all the way from Maine to Colorado? And now that you are rich, you think you can desert me for that baby-faced blonde, Baby Doe?” Her voice quivered with anger and disdain.

“Be reasonable, Augusta,” Tabor’s voice was firm, yet sad.

“Reasonable! I will never give you a divorce. Never!”

“But, Augusta, you forget. I have my divorce!”

“One that I will never recognize!” she wildly interrupted.

“Baby Doe is now my wife. I love her!”

And there clinging to Tabor was Baby Doe, her soft curves pressed close to him, her head crowned with golden curls resting on his breast.

“She, that creature, will be your ruin!” Augusta said and pointed her finger derisively. “You’ll never become Senator tied to her! You’ll never be anything! You’re finished!”

“Augusta,” Tabor spoke with sorrowful dignity. “I have made you rich. I’ve given you mines. You want more money, very well! Only I will have Baby Doe....” And he clasped the silent clinging figure closer to him.

Augusta rose to her full height, like an angry prophetess of old. “She’s after your money, your fortune. And when that is gone, she’ll leave you! Some day when you are ragged and poverty-stricken, you will wake up. Wake up!”

Judy felt someone shaking her arm. “Wake up!” the voice repeated. She opened her eyes with difficulty. A boy was bending over her.

“The rehearsal’s over. The quartet will be leaving in a few minutes and lock up.”

Judy looked at him, her mind still hovering between the past and the present. “Who are you?” she asked.

“My name’s Karl. I’m a violin student. I’ve been listening to the rehearsal. Please come along. I don’t want to get locked in here.”

“I just closed my eyes for a minute,” Judy said as she followed him down the balcony steps.

“It was a long minute, closer to thirty,” he laughed. “I saw—or rather heard you—as you lowered that seat—sort of crash landing.”

“I know. I was petrified when it fell. A broken spring, I guess.”

They neared the entrance door. The music stands were folded and the players were talking and laughing among themselves. Judy and Karl left unnoticed and ran swiftly down the two long flights of stairs.

“They’ve stopped practicing!” Judy said, surprised at the silence in the halls.

“Of course, lunch time. Most of the students eat at the houses, you know, the dorms where they live.”

“You too?”

Karl shook his head. “I came weeks before the Music Festival started. I live with my uncle.”

They stood for a moment. The sun felt warm and pleasant after the mustiness of the Opera House. They looked at each other curiously.

“Well,” the boy smiled, about to leave.

“Karl,” Judy said hesitantly. She didn’t want him to go, not just yet. He was nice—didn’t treat her like a child.

“Karl,” she said with a little more confidence, “where are you going to eat your lunch?”

“Anywhere,” and he shrugged his shoulders as he tapped the pocket of his coat bulging with a yellow bag.

“I have my lunch along too. The Chairlift is where I nearly always go. There are benches and one can buy something to drink right there.”

“O.K.,” Karl said. “It’s one of my favorite spots too.” They started walking.

“By the way, what’s your name?”

“Judy.”

“Judy,” he repeated. “I once knew a girl who was called Judith.”

“You did? What was she like?”

“It was a long time ago when I lived with a family abroad,” he said quietly and quickly changed the subject.

“How did you like Bartok? Or didn’t you hear any of it?” he said with a good-natured smile.

“Of course I did!” Remembering how little of it she had really heard, she went on carefully choosing her words. “I found it difficult to understand—to—”

“You’re right,” he interrupted, much to Judy’s relief. “I’ve heard it now five times and each time I discover something new in it. It’s great music. Like Milhaud and the other moderns, you’ve got to hear them again and again. I came especially to hear Bartok’s piece because I’m studying it. I can’t wait to hear it again on Thursday night.”

“Oh, yes, Thursday night.”

“Expect to be there?” Karl asked.

“Naturally,” Judy answered. “My parents count on my going.”

Her recent resolution flashed through her mind. “Wild horses wouldn’t drag me here again!” But it was different now. Now there was Karl!

6 KARL

They walked on, Judy matching with ease Karl’s long stride. One block, then another. She gave him a quick sidelong glance. He was much taller than she was. His appearance was all that she could have wished. His eyes—well, she had noticed them from the first, blue and dreamy. Even his chin came in for some scrutiny. Her grandmother had often summed up a person. He’s got a weak chin, vacillating, will never amount to anything—or he’s got a strong chin, shows character. Karl’s, she thankfully noted, was of the strong variety. So absorbed was she in her appraisal of Karl that she was scarcely aware of the silence between them.

When he began to whistle, a sad, plaintive melody, she realized at once that she must say something. Silence could be devastating! How often she and her friends discussed this very problem! What to say to a boy you hardly know, especially when dancing, when it takes all your ingenuity to keep your mind on those intricate steps, or when walking, as at the present moment. She must say something—anything, if only something brilliant or clever came to mind.

“Er—Does your uncle live around here?” she asked brightly.

“No,” Karl said, leaving off his whistling. “If we were walking in the opposite direction, I could have shown you his place on Main Street. He has an apartment over his business. Maybe you’ve seen it? It’s called the Swiss Shop.”

“Yes, I think I have, if it’s the one with the window full of carved peasant figures, gnomes and cuckoo clocks!”

“Yes, that’s it!” Karl interrupted. “I arranged that window display myself,” he added with a touch of pride.

“Really?” Judy tactfully refrained from saying how ugly she had thought it. “I’ve passed it many times. Does the name Swiss Shop mean that your uncle imports these things from Switzerland?”

“Yes, and lots of other articles besides; jewelry and scarves, sweaters for skiers and mountain climbers. Of course, cuckoo clocks are his real hobby.”

“I can’t imagine who would want to buy a cuckoo clock,” Judy ventured to say.

“No, neither could I, at first, but they do. Tourists, lots of them, especially from Texas—they’re our best customers. Personally, I think they’re a nuisance, a mechanical bird popping at you every hour. It can be quite annoying when you practice.”

The jinx of silence was broken for the moment. Judy knew she had to keep the talk flowing. The subject of clocks could be pursued.

“The kind of clocks I like best,” she said, “are the antique ones from our American Colonial days. My grandmother collects them. She has one on every mantel, over every fireplace in her house! They’re really beautiful, usually of mahogany, with delicate pointed spires, like a church steeple. Of course, none of them work. When you really wish to know the time, you have to dash into the kitchen to look at the electric clock fastened to the wall.”

“Well, what’s the good of them—just ornaments?”

“Grandma says they can be made to work if she ever got around to finding a really dependable clockmaker,” Judy finished, rather crestfallen. The subject of clocks was definitely exhausted.

It was while they stood at a crossing, waiting for some cars to pass, that Karl, as if struck by some original idea, said, “How do you like Aspen?”

Judy frowned, summoned up all her dramatic fervor, and in deep, reproachful tones declaimed, “Et tu, Brute!”

Karl turned to her, a puzzled smile on his face, then he laughed outright. “Why do you spout ‘Julius Caesar’? What do you mean?”

“Because that’s all anyone has asked me ever since I came to Aspen! Nor do they ever bother to listen to an answer.”

“So, I’m in their class!” Karl gave her a quick look. “You’re a queer duck!”

His pleasant and forthright manner, above all his acceptance of her as a companion, put her at ease. The ice was broken. They reached the Chairlift, found a bench, and ate their sandwiches. Judy shared her malted milk and consumed most of Karl’s chocolate bar. The empty chairs of the lift went monotonously skyward, unnoticed by the girl and boy.

Judy, now uninhibited by any barrier of self-consciousness, pursued her usual method of satisfying what she termed her inquiring mind. She asked questions and Karl spoke freely.

She learned he would be eighteen in October and would enter his last year at Music and Art High School in New York. That he had private instruction in violin and in theory and practiced three hours a day, week ends longer.

“What will you do after graduation?” the young inquisitor went on.

“I don’t know—I can’t say. College, perhaps? It’s a hope, but a dim one. If I’m to pursue music as a career—things are a bit mixed up just at present.” He paused, as if weighing the matter.

“You see,” he said in a serious voice, “I owe it to my father to become a fine musician, if possible a great one. That’s my mother’s dream. It’s mine also.”

Judy shook her head. It all sounded very dull and depressing.

“Then all your life is just school, music lessons, and practicing. You never have any time for any fun—for sports, for nothing except work!”

“No, perhaps not,” Karl said cheerfully. “But it all depends on what you want to do—to accomplish.” He went on. “But I don’t lack for exercise, if that’s what you mean. I have a bicycle and a newspaper route. I get plenty of fresh air. I even have a pupil. Maybe I’ll get another,” he said hopefully. “The money will be very useful.”

“Money!” For the first time Judy was critical of her new, much-prized friend. Idealists didn’t worry about money. “Is that all that matters? Money?”

“Yes, money is important,” Karl said emphatically. “My mother works at a music shop. She spends two hours and more each day traveling on the subway. When she gets home at night, tired as she is, there’s dinner to prepare, things to do in the house, people to see—a few friends. Concerts, of course. Someone I should hear—always my interests guide her. So it’s up to me to do well in my studies, in my music, and earn a little money to justify her sacrifice. She doesn’t call it sacrifice. She loves what she’s doing and is buoyed up by her ambition, her certainty of my success.” Karl had spoken with considerable heat, but now he added quietly, “So you see how important are the few dollars I earn, to pay part of the cost of my lessons.”

“You didn’t understand me, Karl,” Judy said humbly. “Money is important to us too. But what I meant is that there are other things that don’t cost anything and are important too.” She spoke diffidently, trying to formulate thoughts she had never seriously considered but accepted as the air she breathed.

“There are books—and friends—and art.” Still struggling to express herself, she raised an arm to the mountains. “And nature!”

Karl nodded his head in agreement. “Of course, I like all those things. Who wouldn’t? I love to read, although the only time I have is usually late at night when I should be asleep. As for friends, I would be untruthful if I didn’t admit I miss having close friends, even one. At first, even though I could speak a little English, I was considered a foreigner.”

At Judy’s exclamation, “That’s so narrow-minded!” Karl calmly said, “That all passed in a year or two. I’m friendly with boys in my class and I know a few of the girls. But they’re just as busy as I am, in different ways, perhaps. There are some in the class, of course, who don’t take their future careers seriously and they look down upon those of us who do. They manage to have a good time, sports, girls, movies, everything!” He shrugged his shoulders. “I have to go my own way. Someone has said that to be lonely makes one strong. I’m not so sure. One misses an awful lot.”

For once Judy was at a loss for words. She was touched by Karl’s simple, unaffected words. To think that she had complained of being lonely! Her mother and father led busy lives, but she knew she was never far from their thoughts. They filled the house with gayety. Yes, they worked, her mother and father.