The Automaton Ear, and Other Sketches

by Florence McLandburgh

From there, two days in every week, to the quaint old-fashioned house at the foot of the hill, the children wended their way with music folios, coming loiteringly in Summer over the narrow foot-path where the wild columbine grew by the creek, but in Winter walking hurriedly over the frozen turnpike, swinging their arms, blowing their fingers, and sometimes doing battle bravely with the snow.

Here Franz Erckman lived in the plainest manner, with only his piano and his cottage-organ for companions. Wife and children he had none, nor any relative, nor any domestic pet. There was never a dog, or cat, or even so much as a chicken, to be seen about the premises. One servant he kept, to be sure, but she, a cross old woman, never opened her mouth for the purpose of speech more than a dozen times in a year, and then it was only upon some unusual provocation, as when the scholars broke a pitcher, or muddied her floor, when she would give utterance to some incoherent but disagreeable ejaculation.

Franz Erckman had lived in this way for nearly twenty years, and was just as bluff in manner, and just as reserved in disposition, as when he had first come there, an unknown young foreigner, without friends, or acquaintances, or money, and commenced in a modest way giving music-lessons to a few pupils at first, to many after a time.

When the new church was built, and a new organ with great gilded pipes put in, his services were engaged, as well they might, for no other person in the whole village could have made any thing whatever out of all those stops, and pedals, and keys.

Now that Pickaway had grown to be quite a town, with a very respectable hotel, many tourists came down in the summer season from the city to rusticate for a week or two, and they always heard the organist with astonishment. Inquiries about him were so often repeated by these cultivated strangers, that Pickaway had finally grown to feel proud of its musician, and it became as natural to them to show off Franz Erckman as it did to call attention to the beautiful scenery. It would have been hard to have overlooked either, for a more picturesque landscape could rarely have been found.

However, all this praise and adulation had apparently made little effect upon the village music-master, who had been again and again invited to come up for one season to the city by these friendly tourists. They held out to him the allurements of the orchestras and operas, and told wonderful tales of the superb voices of the great prime donne. It was all in vain. He always thanked them for their proffered hospitality, but never accepted it, and lived along, seemingly content enough to teach the village children, and play the church-organ. Only his one servant knew how at night, and sometimes all night through, he tried ineffectually to satisfy his great craving for music, and how, not until the pale light of morning was visible in the east, would he shut his cottage-organ. And when he turned from it there was always a strange expression of despair upon his features.

The people of the town said he was penurious, for he invariably exacted the tuition of each scholar in advance, and if at the appointed time it was not forthcoming, he quietly dismissed the pupil without a word, and there were no more lessons given until the quarter had been paid. However, they grew to know him so well that every body fell into the habit, in his case at least, of being punctual.

So, working steadily year after year, as he had done, with almost no expenses of living, Pickaway thought he must have laid by quite a fortune, and when the Widow Massey, poverty-stricken though she was, made up her mind to send her little daughter—her only child—the poor, weak, crippled little Alice, who went every Sunday to the church, and listened with such deep delight to the strains of the great organ—when the Widow Massey made up her mind to send her daughter to the music-master, and give her this one pleasure, that it might brighten somewhat the life so early blighted, all the people thought he would surely take the child for nothing. But he did not—he took the money, the full amount; and, if the people made sarcastic remarks about his penuriousness, they never offered to pay for the little girl. And the mother never thought of asking a favor from any one. Though she earned by hard labor scarcely enough to keep them, still for the last year she had had this thought at heart, and quietly saved a little at a time, until finally the long-coveted sum was in her possession; and gladly she went and gave it to the music-master, who put it down at the bottom of his vest-pocket, and told her to send the little girl twice a week. And twice a week the little girl went.

That was in the Summer. She was pale, and thin, and delicate, and the scholars all wondered how she would get there through the snow in the Winter. But before the bleak winds had blown one rude blast, the little Alice had a worse trouble. The Widow Massey suddenly fell ill and died, commending her beloved child to the care only of the great Guardian above.

It was a terrible stroke, and the people all wondered what would become of the helpless daughter, who was too feeble to do any kind of work for a means of subsistence, and every person thought it strange that somebody else did not come to her relief.