CHAPTER XX
A MUSICAL TRAMP.
WE wanted Cherry to play, but we did not feel that we ought to ask her to do it; she would be tired, after her journey, and piano playing to her was no novelty.
But when, after dinner, while passing through the sitting room, on our way to the veranda she ran a harmony enticing hand over the keys as she walked by the piano, I could not help saying,
“Don’t you feel like following that up with the other hand?”
She laughed, and sitting down at the piano she said, “Why, certainly. What shall it be?”
“Oh, we leave that to you,” said Ethel. “Play what you like and you’ll play what we like.”
“Is Grieg getting old fashioned?” I asked.
“I never inquired,” said Cherry. “I don’t believe in fashions in arts. I liked Grieg, and Schumann, and Beethoven, and Mendelssohn, and Wagner, and Johann Strauss when I was a child, and so I’ll always like them. And Grieg is always fresh. What shall I play—‘Anitra’s Dance’?”
“Yes, do,” said Ethel. “I never hear that without thinking of Seidl and Brighton Beach and the throngs of doting Brooklyn women who didn’t go to hear the music, but to see Seidl. But it was beautiful music—when the roar of the surf didn’t drown it.”