Philomel Whiffet’s Singing School
Philomel Whiffet was dim of eye and sparse of beard. A little white fringe framed his wrinkled face and numbered indeed were the hairs of his foretop. Trudging up the snow-covered mountain, he caught sight of the glowing stove through the window of Bethel church house whither he was bound this winter night to conduct singing school. He chuckled to himself, drawing the knitted muffler closer about his thin throat and making fast the earflaps of his coonskin cap. “Yes, they’re getting the place het up before the womenfolk come. Mathias or Jonathan, one or the other.” The singing master had come to know the signs by the behavior of the old heating stove—who rivaled, who courted, who might be on the outs. “It’s Jonathan that’s making the fire tonight. I caught the shadow of him against the wall when he threw in the stove wood. Jonathan’s all of a head taller than Mathias. Trying to get in favor with Drusilla Osborn. It’s a plum shame the way that girl taynts him and Mathias. At meeting first with one, then the other. She’s got the two young fellows as mad as hornets at each other nigh half the time. No telling, Dru’s liable to shun them both when it comes to choosing a mate. Women are strange creatures.” The singing master talked to himself as he plodded on.
Many the year Philomel Whiffet traveled that selfsame road with the selfsame aim, for the church house was the only place on Pigeon Creek where folks could gather. The seat of learning too it was there in the Tennessee mountains, so that old Whiffet, having journeyed hither and yon to take up a subscription for singing school, must need get the consent of school trustees and elders in order to hold forth in Bethel church house. Honor-bound too, was he, to divide his fee of a dollar per scholar with his benefactors.
“We’re giving you the chance, brother Whiffet, to earn a living,” one of the elders murmured when the singing master that year shared with them his meager earnings. But when Philomel ventured to suggest it might liven the gathering somewhat if he brought along his dulcimer and strummed the tune while scholars sang, both elders and trustees stood aghast. Couldn’t believe their ears. “Brother Whiffet!” gasped one of the elders, “so long as we’re in our right mind no music box of any nature shall be brought into Bethel church house. We don’t intend to contrary the good Lord in any such way.”
That settled it.
The memory of that session brought a smile to the old man’s face. “Elders and women have strange ways,” he told himself as he walked on through the snow, eyes fixed on the beacon light of the old heating stove in the church house.
“Now I used to think that Mathias had got the best of Jonathan,” his thoughts returned to the present, “but there’s no knowing if Drusilla is aiming to set down her name Mistress Oneby or Mistress Witchcott. Women are powerful tetcheous. Keep a man uncertain and troubled in his mind with their everlasting whims.”
No one knew that any better than did Philomel Whiffet. It made him patient with the young fellows in their trials, for he had had a mighty hard row to hoe in his own courting days. Hadn’t Ambrose Creech and Herb Masters aggravated him within an inch of his life before he finally persuaded Clarissa that neither of the two was worth his salt, that only he, Philomel Whiffet, the singing master, could bring her happiness in wedded life. That had been long years ago.
Philomel had been a widower for ten years past and never once had he cast eyes on another woman; that is to say, with the idea of marriage. “There’s no need for a man to put his mind on such as that without he can better himself, and I never calculate to see Clarissa’s equal, let alone her betters. Nohow, singing school is good a-plenty to keep a body company.” That was Philomel Whiffet’s notion and he stuck to it. It was as though she, Clarissa, still bustled about the Whiffet cabin, for Philomel, though he lived alone, kept the place as she had—spic and span just as Clarissa had left it. There on the shelf were the cedar piggins, scoured clean with white sand from the creek, one for spice, one for rendering, one for sweeting. And there on the wall hung the salt gourd. “It’s convenient to the woman for cooking,” he had said when first they started housekeeping. How happy he had been in those days, looking after Clarissa and the little Whiffets as they came along. Not until they were all grown and married off and gone, and he and Clarissa were alone once more, did he really come to realize how very happy their household had been. He liked to look back on those times. “It’s singing-school night, Pa”—Clarissa had taken to calling him Pa; got it from the children. “You best strike the tuning fork and sing a tune or two before you start. Gets your throat limbered up and going smooth.” Philomel had come to wait for her urging. Then he would fumble in his waistcoat pocket for the tuning fork and tapping it to chair rim or bootheel, he’d hold it to his ear, pitch the tune, and sing a verse or two of this ballad and of that. Then when he started forth on a winter’s night, “Mind your wristban’s!” his wife would say, “and your spectacles! Don’t forget your spectacles! Your sight’s not sharp as it once was. And your tuning fork, Pa. Don’t forget to put it in your pocket.” It pleased the old singing master in those days to have Clarissa feel that he was dependent upon her. And now that she was gone, for ten long years, those familiar words running through old Philomel Whiffet’s thoughts were all he had left to remind him of his needs when he started out to singing school.