Part 8

The Episcopalians gave us our first shock when they built their little church--spireless, indeed, so that their bell had to be set on a scaffold in the back yard--but with a pipe organ actually built into the church. We figured that seven, at least, of our congregation went over to the Episcopalians on account of the pipe organ. The Methodists were but a year or two later. I do not remember whether the Congregationalists were a year before or a year after the Methodists, but the net result was that we Presbyterians and the United Brethren were the last to lag along, and the United Brethren had neither our size nor wealth. Not that our wealth was much to brag of.

After her typhoid Ellen Hardcome's voice broke--the disease “settled in her throat,” as we said then--and she stepped out of the choir to make way for little Mollie Mitchell, who sang like a bird and had a disposition like one of Satan's imps. Hardly had Lucille Hardcome taken charge of our church music than she began her campaign for a pipe organ. By that time the “new” organ was the “old” organ and actually worse than the old “old” organ had ever been. It was in the habit of emitting occasional uncalled-for groans and squeaks and at times all its efforts were accompanied by a growl like the drone of a bagpipe. The blind piano tuner had long since refused to have anything more to do with it, and Merkle, the local gun and lock smith, tinkered it nearly every week. It was comical to see old Schwerl roll his eyes in agony as he played his violin beside it.

As Merkle said, repairing musical instruments was not his business, and he had to “study her up from the ground.” He did his best, but probably the logic of his repair work was based on a wrong premise. We never knew, when Merkle entered the church on a Saturday to correct the trouble that evolved during Friday night's choir practice, what the old black walnut monstrosity would do on Sunday.

All through this period, as through her struggles with the old “old” organ, Miss Hurley labored patiently. “I couldn't do so and so,” old Merkle used to tell her, “so you want to look out and not do so and so.” Perhaps it meant she must pump with one foot, or not touch some three or four of the “stops.” She did her best and, but for the rankling thought that the other churches were listening to glorious pipe organ strains, I dare say we would have been satisfied well enough. I always loved to see the gentle little lady seat herself on the narrow bench, arrange her skirts, place her music on the rack and then look up to catch the back of Dominie Dean's curly-haired head in her little mirror.

When Lucille Hardcome announced that she just couldn't stand the squeaky old organ any longer and that the church must have a pipe organ if she had to work night and day for it, we knew the church would have a pipe organ, for Lucille--as a rule--got whatever she set her heart on.

Lucille's announcement threw little Miss Jane into a flutter of excitement. It was as if someone gave a gray wren a thimbleful of champagne. Miss Jane was all chirps of joy and tremblings of the hand. She hardly knew whether to be jauntily joyous or crushed with fear. Her eyes were unwontedly bright, and her cheeks, which had not glowed for years, burned red. The very Friday night that Lucille condemned the old organ and proclaimed a new one Miss Jane, walking beside David Dean (although she felt more like skipping for joy), asked David a daring question.

“Won't it be wonderful to have a real organ--a pipe organ!” she exclaimed. “It means so much in the musical service, Mr. Dean. I try to make the old organ praise the Lord but--of course I don't mean anything I shouldn't--but sometimes I think there is no praise left in the old thing! I can do so much more if we have a pipe organ!”

“I imagine you sometimes think the Old Harry is in the old walnut case, Miss Jane,” said David.

“Oh, I would never think that!” cried Miss Jane, and then she laughed a shamed little laugh. “That is just what sister Mary said last Sunday when the bass growled so!”

She walked a few yards in silence, nerving herself to ask the question.

“Mr. Dean,” she said, “do you think it would be all right--do you think it would be proper--if I asked Mademoiselle Moran to give me a few lessons?”

She almost held her breath waiting for David's answer. It seemed to her, after the question had left her mouth, that it had been a bold, almost brazen, thing to ask David. It seemed almost shameful to ask the dominie such a question, for, you understand, Mademoiselle Moran was a Catholic, and not only a Catholic but the niece of Father Moran, the priest, and his housekeeper, and the organist of St. Bridget's. The lessons would mean that Miss Jane must go to St. Bridget's; they would be given on the great organ there, with the image of the Virgin, and of St. Bridget, and the gaunt crucifix, and the pictures portraying the Stations of the Cross, and the confessionals, and all else, close at hand. To ask the dominie if one might voluntarily venture into the midst of all that!

“Have you spoken to her yet?” asked David, surprisingly unshocked.

“No! Oh, no! I would not until I had asked you, of course!” gasped Miss Jane. “Why, I haven't had time! I only knew we were going to have a pipe organ this evening!”

“Perhaps you had better let me arrange it,” said David. “I think perhaps Doctor Benedict can manage it, although Mademoiselle is giving up her pupils, Benedict says. Father Moran is worried about her health; Benedict says Mademoiselle is trying to do too much. She is giving up all but her two or three most promising pupils. But in a case like this--Shall I speak to Benedict?”

“Oh, will you? Will you?” cried little Miss Jane ecstatically. “Oh, if you will!”

David smiled in the darkness. But a day or two before, when Doc Benedict had dropped into the manse to sit awhile in David's study under the motto “Keep an even mind under all circumstances,” David had scolded him whimsically for unfaithfulness.

“I don't see you once in a blue moon any more, Benedict,” he had said. “I grow stale for someone to wrangle with. You're a false and fickle friend. Who is your latest passion? Father Moran?”

“Don't you say anything against Father Moran!” Benedict threatened. “It's a pity you're not both Presbyterians, or both Catholics, Davy. You'd love each other. You'd have some beautiful fights. I can't hold my own against him; he's too much for me. He's a fine old man, Davy,” he added, and then, smiling, “and he knows good sherry and good cigars.”

“What do you talk about, over your good sherry and good cigars?” asked David.

“Last night,” said Benedict, “it was music. He had me there, Davy. No man has a right to know as much about as many things as Father Moran knows. Of course, if I had a niece like Mademoiselle I might know about Beethoven and Chopin and all those fellows. He scolded me about our church music. I went for him, of course, on that; bragged about our choir. 'Ah, yes I' he smiled through that thick, brown beard of his; 'and I 'ave heard of your organ!' He gave me an imitation of it through his nose. Then he called Mademoiselle and took me into the church and made her play a thing or two--an 'Elevation' and an 'Ave Maria.' He had me, all right, Davy. It was holy music, Davy!”

So David, remembering, spoke to Benedict about Miss Jane's desire, and Benedict spoke to Father Moran. The old doctor knew just how to handle the good-natured priest, whose eyes were deep in crow's-feet from countless quizzical smiles.

“Why, Father, you yourself were howling and complaining about our church music the other night! Scolding me, you were. And now I give you a chance to better the thing you scolded me about, and you hesitate! Oh, tut! about Mademoiselle's health! Let her give up another of her fancy, arts-and-graces pupils. I prescribe Miss Hurley for Mademoiselle's health. And don't you dare go against her physician's orders!”

Father Moran chuckled in his black beard and his eyes twinkled. He loved to have anyone pretend to bulldoze him; he was a beloved autocrat among his own people.

“You're afraid!” declared Benedict. “You're afraid that when we get our new organ and Miss Hurley learns to play it your Mademoiselle will be overshadowed. We'll show you!”

“Afraid!” chuckled Father Moran. “You heard Mademoiselle play, and you say I am afraid! _Bon!_ Ex-cellent! Come, we will interview Mademoiselle!”

So it was arranged. Mademoiselle would take no remuneration. She patted little Miss Hurley on the thin shoulder and smiled, but she would not hear of payment.

“N', no!” she declared. “I teach you because I like you, because I like all praise music shall be good music. N', no! We will not think about money; we will think about great, grand music. You will be my leetle St. Cecilia; yes?” Not until she had consulted David, and had been assured that accepting such a favor from the niece of the priest was not at all wrong, would Miss Hurley agree. Then the lessons began, Miss Hurley always “my leetle St. Cecilia” to Mademoiselle. They were a strongly contrasted pair: Mademoiselle Moran stout, black-haired, with powerful arms and fingers; Miss Hurley a mere wisp of humanity, hair already gray, and with scarce strength to handle the stops and keys.

When first she entered the huge St. Bridget's Miss Hurley cringed, as if she entered a forbidden place. The great stained windows permitted but little light to enter; here and there some woman knelt low on the floor, crossing herself. Mademoiselle walked to the organ loft with a brisk, businesslike tread and Miss Hurley followed her timidly. From somewhere Father Moran appeared, smiling, and patted Miss Hurley's shoulder. No man had patted Miss Hurley's shoulder for many years, but she was far from resenting it. It was like a good wish. Then Mademoiselle reached up and drew the soft green curtains across the front of the organ loft and lo! they were alone. The lesson began.

It needed but that one first lesson to tell Mademoiselle that her “leetle St. Cecilia” would never play “great, grand music” on a large pipe organ. It was as if you were to undertake to teach a child trigonometry and discovered he did not know the multiplication table beyond seven times five. Miss Hurley hardly knew the rudiments of music; harmony, thoroughbass and all the deeper things, that Mademoiselle had learned so long ago that they were part of her nature now, were absolute Greek to Miss Hurley. But, worse than all this, Miss Hurley had not the physique of an organist. She was physically inadequate.

Such news invariably leaks out. Long before Lucille Hardcome had managed to coax the pipe organ out of Sam Wiggett's purse it was known that Miss Hurley was “taking lessons” from Mademoiselle and that she was not strong enough to play a pipe organ properly. For her part, had Miss Hurley been any other person, Mademoiselle would have thrown up her hands and turned her back on the impossible task, but she liked Miss Jane sincerely. I think she loved the little old maid. It must be remembered that St. Bridget's was Irish and in those days many of the Irish in Riverbank were fresh from the peat bogs and potato fields, and Mademoiselle, before coming to care for her uncle's house, had lived in the midst of France's best. It is no wonder she craved even such crambs of culture as Miss Hurley had gathered or that she loved the little woman. In return she gave Miss Jane all she could.

There were intricacies of stops and keys, foot pedaling and fingering, that must be explained and practiced, but Mademoiselle early told Miss Hurley:

“St. Cecilia, you are not, remembair, the grand organist; you are the sweet organist. For me”--she made the organ boom with a tumult of sound--“for me, yes! I am beeg and strong. But, for you”--she played some deliciously dainty bit--“because you are gentle and sweet!”

And all the while Miss Jane and Mademoiselle were having their little love affair and their struggles with stops and pedals and keys, behind the green curtain of St. Bridget's organ loft, Lucille Hardcome was bringing all her diplomacy to bear against old Sam Wiggett's pocket. For her own part she made a direct assault: “Mr. Wiggett, you're going to give us a pipe organ!” She kept this up day in and day out: “Have you decided to give us that pipe organ?” and, “I haven't seen the pipe organ you are going to give us. Where is it?” Old Wiggett, who liked Lucille, chuckled. Perhaps he knew from the first that he would give the organ. Lucille set his daughter, Mary Derling, to coaxing, and primed unsuspecting old ladies to speak to Mr. Wiggett as if the organ was a certainty. She had Mort Walsh, the architect, prepare a plan for taking out a portion of the rear wall of the church without disturbing the regular services. She took a group of ladies to Derlingport to hear the pipe organ in the Presbyterian Church there. They returned enthusiastic advocates of an organ for our church, and Lucille, knowing Sam Wiggett, and sure the old fellow would love to have his name attached forever to some one big thing in the church, set the ladies to raising money for a pipe organ. This was a hopeless task and Lucille knew it. It was done to frighten Mr. Wiggett and make him hurry with his gift, lest he lose the opportunity.

One result of the trip to Derlingport can be stated in the words of Mrs. Peter Minch, uttered as she came down the steps of the Derlingport church:

“Well, Lucille, if we have an organ like that we will have to have more of an organist than Jane Hurley!”

“Of course!” Lucille had said. “Jane Hurley and a pipe organ would be ridiculous!”

So this was added to David's worries. The choir of four and Lucille--as musical dictator of the church--spoke to David almost immediately about the retirement of Miss Hurley. It would be better to say perhaps, that they spoke to him about the manner in which money could be raised to pay a satisfactory organist. They did not consider Miss Hurley as a possibility at all. She had done well enough with the old organ, and it had been pleasant for her, and well for the church, that she had been permitted to play the squeaky old instrument without pay, but she simply would not do when it came to the new organ. David listened, his head resting in his hand and one long finger touching his temple. He saw at once that a quarrel was in the air.

“You did not know,” he asked, “that Miss Hurley has been taking lessons from Mademoiselle Moran for a month or more!”

“Oh, that!” said Lucille. “That's nonsense! If she wants to play 'Onward, Christian Soldiers' for the Sunday school, I don't object; but church music! We have heard the organist at Derlingport!”

“I think,” said David, “that for a while at least, if we get a pipe organ, Miss Hurley should be our organist. She is looking forward to it. She is taking lessons with that in view!”

Lucille said nothing, but in her eyes David saw the resolve to be rid of Miss Hurley.

“Miss Jane understands, I think,” David said, “that she is to continue as our organist. At no advance in salary,” he smiled.

Lucille closed her mouth firmly. As clearly as if she had spoken, David read in her face: “Well, if that's who is to play the pipe organ, I shan't try to get one!” He did not wait for her to speak.

“I feel,” he said, “that if Miss Hurley is to be thrown out after so many years of patient and faithful struggling with the miserable instruments she has had to do with, it would be better to let the whole idea of having a pipe organ drop. At any rate, the chance of getting one seems small.”

“Oh, we're going to have one!” exclaimed Lucille, caught in the trap he had prepared for her spirit of opposition. “I get what I go after, Mr. Dean.”

X. LUCILLE DISCOVERS DAVID

IT was no new thing for David to feel the opposition of his choir; indeed, is not the attitude of minister and choir in many churches usually that of armed neutrality? How many ministers would drop dead if all the bitterness that is put into some anthems could kill! To the minister the choir is often a body of unruly artistic temperaments bent on mere secular display of its musical talents; to the choir the minister is a crass utilitarian, ignorant in all that relates to good music, and stubbornly insisting that the musical program for each day shall be twisted to illustrate some point in his sermon. To some ministers it has seemed that eternal vigilance alone prevented the choir from singing the latest “Gem from Comic Opera”; some choirs have felt that unless they battled strenuously they would be tied down to “Old Hundred” and “Blest Be the Tie that Binds,” by a minister who did not know one note from another. How many ministers have, early in November, begun to dread the inevitable quarrel over the choice of Christmas music!

Lucille Hardcome was a large woman and much given to violent colors, but, to do her justice, she managed them with a _chic_ that put them above any question of mere good taste. She clashed a green and purple together, and evolved something that was “style” and that had to be recognized as “style.” In a day when women were wearing gray and black striped silks, as they were then, Lucille would concoct with her dressmaker something in orange and black, throw in a bow or two of cerulean blue, and appear well dressed. She could wear a dozen jangling bracelets on her plump arm and leave the impression that she was not overornamented, but ultrafashionable. You would have said, to see her among the less violently garbed women of the church, that she was one who would win only by bold thrusts. On the contrary, she could be a wily diplomatist.

Just as old Sam Wiggett received from unexpected quarters questions regarding the pipe organ, so David began to hear questions regarding the organist. Some asked him eagerly if it were true an organist was to be brought from Chicago; some asked if it were true that Miss Hurley had refused to play the big new organ. Presently he heard the name of the young man who was to be brought from Chicago to supplant Miss Hurley; then that the young man was to have a position in Sam Wiggett's office if he couldn't get into Schultz' music store.

It was soon after the arrangements for the purchase of the pipe organ had been made (Sam Wiggett giving in at last) that Miss Jane herself came to David. She had been ill two days, confined to her bed, although she did not tell David so. Partly, no doubt, her little breakdown had come because of the overhard work she was doing with Mademoiselle, but mainly it had been the shock of the word that she was to be pushed aside. Her disappointment had been overwhelming, for little Miss Jane had coveted with all her heart the joy of playing the great, new organ. The news that another was to be organist came like the blow of a brutal fist between her eyes, and she went down. For two days she fought against what she felt must be her great selfishness and then, still weak but ready to do what she felt was her duty, she went to David. 'Thusia, herself weak, led her to David's study door and left her there. David let her enter and closed the door after her. He placed a chair for her. The light fell on her face, and as he saw the marks her struggle had left there he threw up his head and drew a deep breath. All the fight there was in him surged up, and he cast his eyes at the spatter-work motto above his desk before he dared speak. His gray eyes glowed cold fire.

“Not on your own account, but on mine,” he said, “you will go on just as you have been going, Miss Jane Hurley! You are making some progress under Mademoiselle Moran!”

“Why--yes--yes--” Miss Jane stammered, twisting her handkerchief, “but--”

“Then you are all the organist the church wants or needs or shall have, unless it wants and needs and has a new dominie! I dare say we can manage to praise the Lord with your fingers and soul quite as well as with Samuel Wiggett's money and Lucille Hardcome's ambition.”

“But I can't!” said Miss Jane. “I can't, when they all want a new organist; they'll hate me. You don't know, Mr. Dean, what it would be to sit there and feel their hate against my back. You'll think I'm foolish, but if I could face them it would be different; but to sit there and try to play when everyone in the church doesn't want me, and to feel every eye behind me hostile! I can't, Mr. Dean!”

David opened the study door.

“'Thusia!” he called, and his wife answered. “Who do you want as your organist!” he called. “Why, Miss Jane, of course!” 'Thusia replied. “There's one who will not look hatred at your back,” said David. “And I'm two. And I can take little Roger to church, and that will be three. And I dare say we can find others. 'Thusia should know. Who does Mrs. Merriwether want, Thusia!” he called.

“She wants Miss Jane,” said 'Thusia promptly. They joined 'Thusia where she lay on her couch. “Are you worried about what Lucille has been suggesting, Miss Hurley! Dear me! you mustn't let anything like that worry you! Why, someone always wants something else. If David and I worried about what everyone wants we would do nothing but worry!”

“But Mr. Wiggett is giving the organ, and Lucille really got it for the church--” Miss Hurley faltered.

“I know,” said 'Thusia, “but David wants you to be the organist. That is both sides and the middle of the matter for me. David always knows what is best!”

“So, you see,” said David smiling, “we've had our little tempest in a teapot for nothing. 'Thusia, have you a teapot with something other than tempests in it? A cup might refresh Miss Jane.”

Her talk with 'Thusia did more than anything David could have said, perhaps, to convince Miss Jane that she need not bury her fond desire, for 'Thusia could talk as one woman talks to another. As she talked Miss Jane saw things as they were, the great majority of the congregation wishing to retain Miss Jane, with but a few of the richer and display-loving wanting anything else. 'Thusia was able to convey this without saying it. She made it felt, as a woman can when she chooses. A name here, a name there, an incidental mention of Lucille's unfortunate attempt to put her coachman in livery, and Miss Jane saw the church as it was--a few moneyed “pushers” and the body of silent, sincere worshipers. More than all else 'Thusia herself seemed to embody the spirit of the congregation. It suddenly occurred to Miss Jane that, after all, the quiet people who were her friends were the real church. And this was true. She left quite at peace with the idea that she was to play the new organ when it was installed.

And then David began his fight for Miss Jane, which became a fight against Lucille Hardcome. Lucille fought her battle well, but the odds were against her. As against the few who wanted a hired organist at any price there were an equal few who still questioned the propriety of having a new organ at all. Against her were still others who would have been with her had she and her warmest supporters not so often tried to “run” everything connected with the church, but the overwhelming sentiment was that as Miss Jane was “taking lessons” from the best organist in Riverbank, and as Miss Jane had always been organist, and as hiring one would be an added expense, Miss Jane ought to stay, at least until it was quite evident that she would not do at all. Even Professor Schwerl told David, albeit secretly, that he was for Miss Jane, his theory being that it was better to hear a canary bird pipe prettily than to listen to any half-baked virtuoso Lucille was likely to secure.