Elbow-Room: A Novel Without a Plot

by Charles Heber Clark

CHAPTER XX.

HIGH ART.

An itinerant theatrical company gave two or three performances in Millburg last winter, and in a very creditable fashion, too. One of the plays produced was Shakespere's "King John," with the "eminent tragedian Mr. Hammer" in the character of the King. It is likely that but for an unfortunate misunderstanding the entertainment would have been wholly delightful. There is a good deal of flourishing of trumpets in the drama, and the manager, not having a trumpeter of his own, engaged a German musician named Schenck to supply the music. Schenck doesn't understand the English language very well, and the manager put him behind the scenes on the left of the stage, while the manager stood in the wing at the right of the stage. Then Schenck was instructed to toot his trumpet when the manager signaled with his hand. Everything went along smoothly enough until King John (Mr. Hammer) came to the passage, "Ah, me! this tyrant fever burns me up!" Just as King John was about to utter this the manager brushed a fly off of his nose, and Schenck, mistaking the movement for the appointed signal, blew out a frightful blare upon his bugle. The King was furious and the manager made wild gestures for Schenck to stop, but that estimable German musician imagined that the manager wanted him to play louder, and every time a fresh motion was made Schenck emitted a more terrific blast The result was something like the following:

King John. "Ah, me! this tyrant—"

Schenck (with his cheeks distended and his eyes beaming through his spectacles). "Ta-tarty; ta-ta-tarty, rat-tat tarty-tarty-tarty, ta-ta-ta, tanarty-arty, te-tarty."

King John. "Fever burns—"

Schenck. "Rat-tat-tarty, poopen-arty, oopen-arty, ta-tarty-arty-oopen-arty; ta-ta; ta-ta-ta-tarty poopen-arty, poopen a-a-a-arty-arty."

King John. "Ah, me! this—"

Schenck (ejecting a hurricane from his lungs). "Hoopen-oopen-oopen-arty, ta-tarty; tat-tat-ta-tarty-ti-ta-tarty; poopen-ta-poopen-ta-poopen-ta-a-a-a-tarty-whoop ta-ta."

King John (quickly). "Tyrant fever burns me up."

Schenck (with perspiration standing out on his forehead). "To-ta ta-ta. Ta-ta ta-ta tatten-atten-atten arty te-tarty poopen oopen-oo-oo-oo-oo-oopen te-tarty ta-ta-ar-ar-ar-te tarty-to-ta-a-a-a-a-A-+A+-+A!+"

King John (to the audience). "Ladies and gentlemen—"

Schenck. "Ta-ta, ta-ta, ta-ta, poopen-oopen, poopen-oopen, te-ta, tarty oo-hoo oo-hoo-te tarty arty, appen-arty."

King John. "There is a German idiot behind the scenes here who is—"

Schenck. "Whoopen-arty te-tarty-arty-arty-ta-ta-a-a-a tat-tarty."

King John. "Blowing infamously upon a horn, and—"

Schenck. "Poopen-arty."

King John. "If you will excuse me—"

Schenck. "Pen-arty-arty."

King John. "I will go behind the scenes and check him in his wild career."

Schenck. "Poopen-arty ta-tarty-arty poopen-a-a-a-arty tat-tat-ta-tarty."

Then King John disappeared and a scuffle was heard, with some violent expressions in the German language. Ten minutes later a gentleman from the Fatherland might have been seen standing on the pavement in front of the theatre with a bugle under his arm and a handkerchief to his bleeding nose, wondering what on earth was the matter. In the mean time the King had returned to the stage, and the performance concluded without any music. After this the manager will employ home talent when he wants airs on the bugle.

* * * * *

I have been studying the horn to some extent myself. Nothing is more delightful than to have sweet music at home in the evenings. It lightens the burdens of care, it soothes the ruffled feelings, it exercises a refining influence upon the children, it calms the passions and elevates the soul. A few months ago I thought that it might please my family if I learned to play upon the French horn. It is a beautiful instrument, and after hearing a man perform on it at a concert I resolved to have one. I bought a splendid one in the city, and concluded not to mention the fact to any one until I had learned to play a tune. Then I thought I would serenade Mrs. A. some evening and surprise her. Accordingly, I determined to practice in the garret. When I first tried the horn I expected to blow only a few gentle notes until I learned how to handle it; but when I put the mouth-piece to my lips, no sound was evoked. Then I blew harder. Still the horn remained silent. Then I drew a full breath and sent a whirlwind tearing through the horn; but no music came. I blew at it for half an hour, and then I ran a wire through the instrument to ascertain if anything blocked it up. It was clear. Then I blew softly and fiercely, quickly and slowly. I opened all the stops. I puffed and strained and worked until I feared an attack of apoplexy. Then I gave it up and went down stairs; and Mrs. A. asked me what made me look so red in the face. For four days I labored with that horn, and got my lips so puckered up and swollen that I went about looking as if I was perpetually trying to whistle. Finally, I took the instrument back to the store and told the man that the horn was defective. What I wanted was a horn with insides to it; this one had no more music to it than a terra-cotta drainpipe. The man took it in his hand, put it to his lips and played "Sweet Spirit, Hear my Prayer," as easily as if he were singing. He said that what I needed was to fix my mouth properly, and he showed me how.

After working for three more afternoons in the garret the horn at last made a sound. But it was not a cheering noise; it reminded me forcibly of the groans uttered by Butterwick's horse when it was dying last November. The harder I blew, the more mournful became the noise, and that was the only note I could get. When I went down to supper, Mrs. A. asked me if I heard that awful groaning. She said she guessed it came from Twiddler's cow, for she heard Mrs. Twiddler say yesterday that the cow was sick.

For four weeks I could get nothing out of that horn but blood-curdling groans; and, meantime, the people over the way moved to another house because our neighborhood was haunted, and three of our hired girls resigned successively for the same reason.

Finally, a man whom I consulted told me that "No One to Love" was an easy tune for beginners; and I made an effort to learn it.

After three weeks of arduous practice, during which Mrs. A. several times suggested that it was brutal that Twiddler didn't kill that suffering cow and put it out of its misery, I conquered the first three notes; but there I stuck. I could play "No One to—" and that was all. I performed "No One to—" over eight thousand times; and as it seemed unlikely that I would ever learn the whole tune, I determined to try the effect of part of it on Mrs. A. About ten o'clock one night I crept out to the front of the house and struck up. First, "No One to—" about fifteen or twenty times, then a few of those groans, then more of the tune, and so forth. Then Butterwick set his dog on me, and I suddenly went into the house. Mrs. A. had the children in the back room, and she was standing behind the door with my revolver in her hand. When I entered, she exclaimed,

"Oh, I'm so glad you've come home! Somebody's been murdering a man in our yard. He uttered the most awful shrieks and cries I ever heard. I was dreadfully afraid the murderers would come into the house. It's perfectly fearful, isn't it?"

[Illustration: A SCARED FAMILY]

Then I took the revolver away from her—it was not loaded, and she had no idea that it would have to be cocked—and went to bed without mentioning the horn. I thought perhaps it would be better not to. I sold it the next day; and now if I want music I shall buy a good hand-organ. I know I can play on that.

* * * * *

As music and sculpture are the first of the arts, I may properly refer in this chapter to some facts relative to the condition of the latter in the community in which I live. Some time ago there was an auction out at the place of Mr. Jackson, and a very handsome marble statue of William Penn was knocked down to Mr. Whitaker. He had the statue carted over to the marble-yard, where he sought an interview with Mr. Mix, the owner. He told Mix that he wanted that statue "fixed up somehow so that 'twould represent one of the heathen gods." He had an idea that Mix might chip the clothes off of Penn and put a lyre in his hand, "so that he might pass muster as Apollo or Hercules."

But Mix said he thought the difficulty would be in wrestling with William's hat. It was a marble hat, with a rim almost big enough for a race-course; and Mix said that although he didn't profess to know much about heathen mythology as a general thing, still it struck him that Hercules in a broad-brimmed hat would attract attention by his singularity, and might be open to criticism.

Mr. Whitaker said that what he really wanted with that statue, when he bought it, was to turn it into Venus, and he thought perhaps the hat might be chiseled up into some kind of a halo around her head.

But Mix said that he didn't exactly see how he could do that when the rim was so curly at the sides. A halo that was curly was just no halo at all. But, anyway, how was he going to manage about Penn's waistcoat? It reached almost to his knees, and to attempt to get out a bare-legged Venus with a halo on her head and four cubic feet of waistcoat around her middle would ruin his business. It would make the whole human race smile.

Then Whitaker said Neptune was a god he always liked, and perhaps Mix could fix the tails of Penn's coat somehow so that it would look as if the figure was riding on a dolphin; then the hat might be made to represent seaweed, and a fish-spear could be put in the statue's hand.

Mix, however, urged that a white marble hat of those dimensions, when cut into seaweed, would be more apt to look as if Neptune was coming home with a load of hay upon his head; and he said that although art had made gigantic strides during the past century, and evidently had a brilliant future before it, it had not yet discovered a method by which a swallow-tail coat with flaps to the pockets could be turned into anything that would look like a dolphin.

Then Mr. Whitaker wanted to know if Pan wasn't the god that had horns and split hoofs, with a shaggy look to his legs; for if he was, he would be willing to have the statue made into Pan, if it could be done without too much expense.

And Mr. Mix said that while nothing would please him more than to produce such a figure of Pan, and while William Penn's square-toed shoes, probably, might be made into cloven hoofs without a very strenuous effort, still he hardly felt as if he could fix up those knee-breeches to resemble shaggy legs; and as for trying to turn that hat into a pair of horns, Mr. Whitaker might as well talk of emptying the Atlantic Ocean through a stomach-pump.

Thereupon, Mr. Whitaker remarked that he had concluded, on the whole, that it would be better to split the patriarch up the middle and take the two halves to make a couple of little Cupids, which he could hang in his parlor with a string, so that they would appear to be sporting in air. Perhaps the flap of that hat might be sliced up into wings and glued on the shoulders of the Cupids.

But Mr. Mix said that while nobody would put himself out more to oblige a friend than he would, still he must say, if his honest opinion was asked, that to attempt to make a Cupid out of one leg and half the body of William Penn would be childish, because, if they used the half one way, there would be a very small Cupid with one very long leg; and if they used it the other way, he would have to cut Cupid's head out of the calf of William's leg, and there wasn't room enough, let alone the fact that the knee-joint would give the god of Love the appearance of having a broken back. And as for wings, if the man had been born who could chisel wings out of the flap of a hat, all he wanted was to meet that man, so that he could gaze on him and study him. Finally Whitaker suggested that Mix should make the statue into an angel and sell it for an ornament to a tombstone.

But Mix said that if he should insult the dead by putting up in the cemetery an angel with a stubby nose and a double-chin, that would let him out as a manufacturer of sepulchres.

And so Whitaker sold him the statue for ten dollars, and Mix sawed it up into slabs for marble-top tables. High art doesn't seem to flourish to any large extent in this place.