Chapter 5

“At an exhibit?”

“Yes.”

“Well, up our way we don’t do like that. We take everything that comes in--pies and pickles and bedquilts and pumpkins and everything; putty triflin’ stuff, some of it, but they take it. This is different, I s’pose?”

“A little. Yes. They only take the best--or what they call the best.” The tone was bitter.

Uncle William looked at him mildly. “Then they took yourn--every one on ’em. They was as good picters as I ever see.”

The artist’s face lightened a little. “They _were_ good.” His thought dwelt on them lovingly.

Uncle William slipped quietly away to his room. The artist heard him moving about, opening and shutting bureau drawers, humming gently and fussing and talking in broken bits. Time passed. It was growing dark in the room.

The artist turned a little impatiently. “Hallo there!”

Uncle William stuck out his head. “Want suthin’?”

“What are you doing?” said the artist. It was almost querulous.

Uncle William came out, smoothing his neckerchief. It was a new one, blue like the sky. “I was fixin’ up a little to go see her. Do I look to suit you?” He moved nearer in the dusk with a kind of high pride. The tufts of hair stood erect on his round head, the neckerchief had a breezy knot with fluttering ends, and the coat hung from his great shoulders like a sail afloat.

The artist looked him over admiringly. “You’re great!” he said. “How did you come to know enough not to change?”

“I’ve changed everything!” declared Uncle William. His air of pride drooped a little.

The artist laughed out. “I mean you kept your same kind of clothes. A good many people, when they come down here to New York, try to dress like other folks--get new things.”

Uncle William’s face cleared. He looked down his great bulk with a smile. “I like my own things,” he said. “I feel to home in ’em.”

XIII

Uncle William found the door of the studio, and bent to examine the card tacked on the panel. “Sergia Lvova, Teacher of Piano and Violin.”

He knocked gently.

“Come in.” The call came clear and straight.

Uncle William opened the door.

A girl sat at a table across the room, her eyes protected by a green shade from the lamp that burned near and threw its light on the page she was copying. She glanced up as the door opened and pushed up the green shade, looking out from under it inquiringly. She peered a moment and then sprang up, thrusting aside the shade with a quick turn. “I am so glad you’ve come.” She crossed the room, holding out her hands. There was something clear and fresh in the motion--like a free creature, out of doors.

Uncle William stood smiling at her. “How do you know it’s me?” he said.

The girl laughed quietly. “There couldn’t be two.” Her voice had a running, musical quality, with deep notes in it and a little accent that caught at the words, tripping them lightly. She had taken his hands with a swift movement and was holding them, looking at him earnestly. “You are just as he said,” she nodded.

Uncle William returned the look. The upturned face flushed a little, but it did not fall. He put out his hand and touched it. “Some like a flower,” he said, “as near as I can make out--in the dark.” He looked about the huge, bare room, with its single flame shining on the page.

She moved away and lighted a gas-jet on the wall, and then another. She faced about, smiling. “Will that do?”

Uncle William nodded. “I like a considabul light,” he said.

“Yes.” She drew forward a chair. “Sit down.”

She folded her hands lightly, still scanning him. Uncle William settled his frame in the big chair. His glance traveled about the room. The two gas-jets flared at dark corners. A piano emerged mistily. Music-racks sketched themselves on the blackness. The girl’s face was the only bit of color. It glowed like a red flower, out of the gloom. Uncle William’s glance came back to it. “I got your letter all right,” he said.

“I knew you would come.”

“Yes.” He was searching absently in his pocket. He drew out the bluish slip of paper with rough edge. He handed it to her gravely. “I couldn’t take that, my dear, you know.”

She put it aside on the table. “I thought you might not have money enough to come at once, and he needed you.”

“Yes, he needed me. He’s better.”

Her face lightened. The rays of color awoke and played in it. “You have cured him.”

“Well,”--Uncle William was judicious,--“I give him a pill.”

She laughed out. “He needed _you_,” she said.

“Did he?” Uncle William leaned forward. “I never had anybody need me--not really need me.” His tone confided it to her.

She looked back at him. “I should think every one would.”

He looked a little puzzled. “I dunno. But I see, from the way you wrote, that _he_ did, so I come right along.”

“He will get well now.”

“He was middlin’ discouraged,” said Uncle William.

“He couldn’t see anything the way it is.” Her face had flushed a little, but the light in her eyes was clear.

Uncle William met it. “You showed a good deal of sense,” he said.

The face, as she pushed back the hair from it, looked tired. “I had to think for two.”

Uncle William nodded. “He wants to see you.”

She mused over it. “Do you think I’d better?”

“No,” said Uncle William, promptly.

Her lips remained parted. “Not to-morrow?” she said. Her lips closed on the word gently.

“Not for a considabul spell.” Uncle William shook his head. “He ain’t acted right.”

“He was ill.”

“He was sick,” admitted Uncle William, “--some. But it was some cussedness, too. That ain’t the main thing though.” Uncle William leaned nearer. “He’ll get well faster if he has suthin’ to kind o’ pester him.”

She looked at him with open eyes.

“It’s the way men be,” said Uncle William. “The Lord knew how ’t was, I reckon, when he made ’em. He hadn’t more’n got ’em done, ’fore he made wimmen.” He beamed on her genially. “He’ll get well a good deal faster if the’ ’s suthin’ he thinks he wants and can’t have.”

“Yes. How will you keep him away?” A little twinkle sounded in her voice.

“I’ll take him home with me,” said Uncle William, “up to Arichat.”

“Now?”

“Well, in a day or two--soon’s it’s safe. It’d do anybody good.” His face grew wistful. “If you jest see it once, the way it is, you’d know what I mean: kind o’ big sweeps,”--he waved his arm over acres of moor,--“an’ a good deal o’ sky--room enough for clouds, sizable ones, and wind. You’d o’t to hear our wind.” He paused, helpless, before the wind. He could not convey it.

“I _have_ heard it.”

He stared at her. “You been there?”

“I’ve seen it, I mean--in Alan’s pictures.”

“Oh, them!” His tone reduced them to mere art. But a thought hung on it. “Where be they?” he asked.

“At the ’Exhibition of American Artists.’” It was the tone of sheer pride.

“They took ’em, did they?” said William.

“They couldn’t help it. They sent back one for lack of room, but he will have four hung.”

“That’s good. You haven’t told him?”

“I only heard an hour ago, and I had copying to finish. I have a little recital, of my pupils, this evening. I was planning to write the letter and mail it on the way out.”

Uncle William started up. “I’m hinderin’ ye.”

“No--please.” She had forced him back gently. “I shall not have to write the letter now. Tell me about him.” Her face was alight.

Uncle William considered. “The’ ain’t much to tell, I guess. He’s gettin’ better. He’s actin’ the way men gen’ally do.”

“Yes--?” Her voice sang a little. “And he wants to see me?”

“Wust way,” said Uncle William; “but he ain’t goin’ to. What was you copyin’ when I come in?”

“Some music--for one of the big houses. It helps out.”

Uncle William was looking at her thoughtfully. “He’d better give up his place when we go,” he said. “He’ll, like enough, stay with me all summer.”

“His rooms, you mean?” She mused a little. “Yes, perhaps--”

“They must cost a good deal,” said Uncle William.

“They do.” She paused a minute. “He is almost sure to take a prize,” she said. “It’s the best work he has done.”

“That’ll be good,” said Uncle William. “But we won’t count too much on it. He won’t need money in Arichat. A little goes a long ways up there. Good night.” He was holding out his hand.

She placed hers in it slowly. Uncle William lifted the slim fingers. He patted them benignly. “They don’t look good for much, but they’re pretty,” he said.

She laughed out quietly. “They have to be,” she said. “They’re my tools. I _have_ to be careful of them. That is one of the things we quarreled about--Alan and I. He knew I ought not to use them and he wouldn’t let me do things for him, and he wouldn’t have a nurse, nor go to the hospital.” She sighed a little. “He was very obstinate.”

“Just like a mule,” assented Uncle William. He was stroking the fingers gently. “But he’s got a new driver this time.” He chuckled a little.

She looked up quickly. “Has he consented to go?”

“Well, we’re goin’.--It comes to the same thing I reckon,” said Uncle William. He was looking at the dark face with the darker lines beneath the eyes. “You’ll hev an easier time,” he said. “It’s been putty hard on you.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” quickly, “--only the misunderstandings--and the quarrels--”

“That was the fever,” said Uncle William.

“But _I_ didn’t have the fever,” said the girl. “I might have been patient.”

“Well, I reckon the Angil Gabriel himself’d quarrel with a man that had one of them intermittent fevers,” said the old man thoughtfully. “They’re powerful trying’. You feel better--a little--and you perk up and think you’re goin’ to get well, and then, fust thing you know, there you are--all to do over again. If I had my ch’ice of all the diseases in the calendar, that’s the one I _wouldn’t_ take. Some on ’em you hev the comfort of knowin’ you’ll die of ’em--if ye live long enough.” He chuckled a little. “But this one, ye can’t die and ye can’t get well.”

“But _he_ is going to get well?” The girl’s eyes held him.

“Yes, he’ll be all right if he can set out in the wind a spell--and the sun. The fever’s broke. What he wants now is plenty to eat and good company. You’ll be comin’ up to see us byme-by, mebbe?” He looked at her hopefully.

“Do you think I could?”

“Well, I dunno why not. He’ll be gettin’ restless in a month or so. You might as well be married up there as anywhere. We’ve got a good minister--a fust-rate one.”

She smiled a little wistfully. “He won’t have me,” she said.

“Shucks!” said Uncle William. “You come up, and if he don’t marry you, I will.”

A bell sounded somewhere. She started. “I must go.” A thought crossed her face. “I wonder if you would like it--the recital?” She was looking at him, an amused question in her eyes.

“Is it speaking pieces?” said Uncle William, cautiously.

“Playing them, and singing--one or two. It’s a musicale, you know. You might like it--” She was still thinking, her forehead a little wrinkled. “They are nice girls and--Oh--?” the forehead suddenly lifted, “you _would_ like it. There are sea-pieces--MacDowell’s. They’re just the thing.--” She held him hospitably.--“Do come. You would be sure to enjoy it.”

“Like enough,” said Uncle William. “It takes all kinds of singing to make a world. I might like ’em fust-rate. And it won’t take long?”

“No--only an hour or two. You can leave _him_, can’t you?” The pretty forehead had wrinkled again.

“Easy as not,” said Uncle William. “Best thing for him. He’ll have a chance to miss me a little.”

She smiled at him reproachfully. “We’ll have to hurry, I’m afraid. It’s only a step. But we ought to go at once.”

Uncle William followed in her wake, admiring the quick, lithe movements of the tall figure. Now that the flower-like face was turned away, she seemed larger, more vigorous. “A reg’lar clipper, and built for all kinds of weather,” said Uncle William as he followed fast. “I wouldn’t be afraid to trust her anywheres. She’d reef down quick in a blow.” He chuckled to himself.

She looked around. “Here we are.”

XIV

They had paused at the foot of a flight of stairs. Down the narrow hall-way floated a mingled sound of voices, high and low, with drifting strains of violin-bows laid across strings and quickly withdrawn.

The old man looked at her inquiringly. “They hain’t begun?”

She shook her head. “They’re tuning up.”

His face lifted a little. “I reckoned that couldn’t be the beginnin’. But ye can’t al’ays tell. They make queer noises sometimes.”

“Yes.--I must leave you now.” She had ushered him into a small hall. “I’m going to have you sit here, quite near the platform, where I can see you.” She looked at him a little anxiously. “You don’t need to stay if you don’t like it, you know.”

“Oh, I shall like it fust-rate,” he responded. “It looks like a real comf’tabul chair to set in.”

He seated himself in it and beamed upon the room. The place she had selected for him was near the platform and facing a little toward the audience. It had occurred to her, in a last moment of indecision, that Uncle William might enjoy the audience if the music proved too classic for him. She left him with a little murmur of apology.

A young girl in pink chiffon, with a bunch of huge pink roses, fluttered forward with a program.

Uncle William took it in pleased fingers. He searched for his spectacles and mounted them on his nose, staring at the printed lines. The audience had settled down to attention. Amused glances traveled toward the big figure absorbed in its program. Sergia had whispered a word here and there as she left the room. It made its way back through the crowd--“A friend of Mademoiselle Lvova’s--a sea-captain. She has brought him to hear the MacDowell pieces.” The audience smiled and relaxed. The music was beginning. Two young girls played a concerto from Rubenstein, with scared, flying fingers. They were relieved when it was done, and the audience clapped long and loud. Some one brought them bunches of flowers--twin lilies, tied exactly alike, with long white ribbons. Uncle William, his spectacles pushed up on the tufts of hair, watched with admiring glance as they escaped from the stage. He turned to his right-hand neighbor, an old gentleman with white hair and big, smooth, soft hands, who had watched the performance with gentle care.

“Putty girls,” said Uncle William, cordially.

The man looked at him, smiling. “One of them is my granddaughter, sir,” he responded affably.

She came from the door by the platform and sat down near her grandfather, the lilies and the long white ribbons trailing from nervous fingers. Uncle William leaned forward and smiled at her, nodding encouragement.

She replied with a quick, shy smile and fixed her eyes on the platform.

More pupils followed--young girls and old ones, and a youth with a violin that fluttered and wailed and grew harmonious at last as the youth forgot himself. Uncle William’s big, round face beamed upon him. Sergia, watching him from behind the scenes, could see that he regarded them all as nice children. He would have looked the same had they played on jews’-harps and tin horns. But he was enjoying it. She was glad of that.

She came out during the intermission to speak with him. “They’re all through now,” she said encouragingly.

He looked down at his program bewildered, and a little disappointed, she thought. “They got ’em all done?--I didn’t hear that ’Wanderin’ Iceberg’ one,” he said regretfully. “I cal’ated to listen to that. But I was so interested in the children that I clean forgot.--They’re nice children.” He looked about the room where they were laughing and talking in groups. “Time to go, is it?”

“Not yet. That was only the first half--the pupils’ half. The rest is what I wanted you to hear--the sea-pieces and the others. They are played by real musicians.”

“You goin’ to do one?” asked Uncle William.

“Yes, one.” She smiled at him.

“I’ll stay.” He settled back comfortably.

“That’s right. I must go now and speak to some of the mothers. They only come for the first half. They will be going home.” She moved away.

Uncle William’s eyes followed her admiringly. He turned to the old gentleman beside him. “Nice girl,” he said.

“She is a fine teacher,” responded the old gentleman. “She had not been here long, but she had a good following. She has temperament.”

“Has she?” Uncle William looked after her a little quizzically. “Makes ’em stand around does she? You can’t ever tell about temper. Sometimes it’s the quietest ones has the wust. But she makes ’em work good. You can see that.”

“Yes, she makes them work.” The old gentleman smiled upon him kindly and patronizingly. He had been born and brought up in New York. He was receptive to new ideas and people. There was something about Uncle William--a subtle tang--that he liked. It was a new flavor.

Uncle William studied his program. “Sounds more sensible’n some of it.” He had laid a big finger on a section near the end. “I can understand that, now, ’To an Old White Pine.’ That’s interestin’. Now that one there.” He spelled out the strange sounds slowly, “‘Opus 6, No. 2, A minor, All-e-gro.’ Now mebbe _you_ know what that means--_I_ don’t. But an ol’ white-pine tree--anybody can see that. We don’t hev ’em up my way--pine-trees. But I like ’em--al’ays did--al’ays set under ’em when they’re handy. You don’t hev many round here?”

The old gentleman smiled. “No; there are not many old white pines in New York. I can remember a few, as a boy.”

“Can ye?--Right in the center here?” Uncle William was interested.

“Well, not just here--a little out. But they’re gone.” The old gentleman sighed. “MacDowell has caught the spirit. You can hear the wind soughing through them and the branches creaking a little and rubbing, and a still kind of light all around. It’s very nice.”

“Good poetry, I s’pose,” assented Uncle William. “I don’t care so much for poetry myself. Some on it’s good,” he added thoughtfully. “‘The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck,’ that swings off kind o’ nice, and ’Horatius at the Bridge.’ But most on it has a kind o’ travelin’ round way with it--has to go round by Robin Hood’s barn to get anywheres. I’m gen’ally sort o’ drowsy whilst it’s bein’ read.”

The old gentleman had laughed out genially. “MacDowell doesn’t write poetry, except short things--lines for headings. He makes it on the piano.”

“Makes an old white-pine tree?” demanded Uncle William.

“Well--something like that.”

Uncle William returned to his program. “There’ll be a ’water-lily,’ then, will the’ and an ’eagle,’ and a ’medder brook,’ and a ’wanderin’ iceberg,’ and a ’pair o’ bars’?” He looked up with a soft twinkle. “And like enough a rooster or two, and a knock-kneed horse. I keep a-wonderin’ what that wanderin’ iceberg’ll be like. I’ve _seen_ a wanderin’ iceberg,--leastways I’ve come mighty near one,--but I ain’t ever _heard_ it. You ever met a wanderin’ iceberg?” His tone was friendly and solicitous.

The New York man shook his head. “Only the human kind.”

Uncle William chuckled. “I’ve met that kind myself--and the other kind, too.” He paused suddenly. The audience had hushed itself. Sergia was seated at the piano.

It was a Beethoven number, a sonata. Uncle William apparently went to sleep. Sergia, watching him, smiled gently. He must be very tired, poor dear. The next number will keep him awake all right. It did. It was sung by a famous baritone--“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest! Yo ho! Yo ho!” Uncle William sat up. Joy radiated from him. He clutched his chair with both hands and beamed. The audience laughed with delight and clapped an encore.

“Goin’ to do it again, is he?” said Uncle William. “Now that’s good of him, ain’t it? But I should think he’d kind o’ like to. I’d like to do it myself if I could.”

“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest!” rolled out the voice.

“He gets the spirit of it,” said the old gentleman when the song had ended and the applause had subsided.

“Jest so. I’ve been there myself--come within an ace o’ havin’ _my_ chest set on once. They was all fightin’ drunk, too--jest like that. Gives ye the same kind o’ feelin’s--creepy and shivery-like. What’s _he_ goin’ to do?” A long-haired youth had appeared on the platform. He approached the piano and stood looking at it thoughtfully, his head a little to one side.

“It’s Flanders. He plays the MacDowell--the ’Wandering Iceberg,’ you know.”

“H’m-m.” Uncle William took down his spectacles to look at the youth through them. “You think he can do it all right? He ain’t very hefty.”

The youth had seated himself. He struck a heavy, thundering chord on the keys and subsided. His hands hung relaxed at his sides and his eyes were fixed dreamily on the wall before him.

“Has he got her started?” It was a loud whisper from Uncle William.

The old gentleman shook his head.

Uncle William waited patiently. There was a gentle trickle on the keys--and another. Then a pause and more trickles--then some galloping notes, with heavy work in the bass.

Uncle William looked interested. “She’s gettin’ under way, like enough.

“Sh-h!” The old gentleman held up a hand.

There were some long, flowing lines and a swirling sound that might have been water, and low growls in the bass, and a general rumbling and gritting and sliding and tumbling among the notes. The sounds stopped altogether. The youth sat staring before him. Applause broke from the audience. The youth got up and left the platform.

Uncle William stared after him with open mouth. “Has he got her done?” He turned to the man at his side.

“All done. How did you like it?”

“Well”--Uncle William squinted thoughtfully at his program--“I thought I was goin’ to like it fust-rate--if he’d got to it.”

“He didn’t get there, then?” The man laughed.

“Not to the iceberg.” Uncle William shook his head. A kindly look grew in his face. “I dunno’s he’s so much to blame, though. An iceberg must be kind o’ hard to do, I should think likely.”

“_I_ should think it might be. Music isn’t cold enough.”

“‘T ain’t the cold,” said Uncle William, hastily. “I run acrost an iceberg once. We was skirmishin’ round up North, in a kind o’ white fog, frosty-like, and cold--cold as blazes; and all of a sudden we was on her--close by her, somewheres, behind the frost. We wa’n’t cold any more. It was about the hottest time I ever knew,” he said thoughtfully.

“What happened?”

Uncle William roused himself. “Well, after a spell we knew she wa’n’t there any more, and we cooled down some. But we wa’n’t real cold--not for much as a day or so.”

The youth had returned to the piano. The audience met him with wild applause, half-way, and he bowed solemnly from his hips. There was a weary look in his face.

Uncle William looked him over critically. “He don’t more’n half like it, does he?”

The other man coughed a little. Then he laughed out.

Uncle William smiled genially. “I’ve seen his kind--a good many times. Looks as if they was goin’ to cry when you was feedin’ ’em sugar. They gen’ally like it real well, too.” He consulted his program. “Goin’ to do a hammock, is he?”

The hammock began to sway, and Uncle William’s big head rocked softly in time to it. “Some like it,” he said when it was done; “not enough to make you sea-sick--jest easy swingin’.”

The youth had not left the piano. He played “The Bars at Sunset,” and “A Water Lily,” and “The Eagle,” and then the two sea pieces. Uncle William listened with mild attention.

When it was over and the audience had begun to disperse, Sergia came out. She approached Uncle William, scanning his face. “How did you like it?”

“They all done?” he demanded.

“Yes. Did you like the sea pieces?”

“I liked ’em. Yes--I liked ’em.” Uncle William’s tone was moderate.

Sergia was smiling at him a little. “The ’Depths of the Ocean’--you liked that best, didn’t you?”