In fact the incidents which seemed to point in the direction of Handel Beethoven Smith became so marked that it would have seemed almost like a tempting of Providence to ignore them. Yet there were difficulties in the way. In the first place, he demanded a much larger salary than had satisfied the genial Theodore; and, in the second place, it was rumored that he had in time past lent the glory of his voice to an opera troupe. But with perseverance these and other difficulties were overcome, and Prof. Handel Beethoven Smith was duly installed as leader of our choir.
Prosperity seemed to crown our efforts. The members of the choir came trooping back; it was folly to nurse their wrath to the extent of losing such an opportunity as this. But we had hardly settled into calm, when it became apparent that it was a deceitful calm.
[CHAPTER IV.]
HANDEL BEETHOVEN SMITH proved to be of uncertain temper. At times he was sullen, or sarcastic, and he was always severe. He would not have this, and he would have that. He told the leading bass that his voice sounded like a trombone, without its correctness of pitch. He said the Emmons girls had harsh, grating voices, and that Carrie Fowler's singing reminded him of a certain rooster which used to disturb his morning slumbers. You hardly need to be told the results of all this. They became apparent to us by degrees. One by one the choir grew smaller. The leading bass accepted an invitation elsewhere. The Emmons girls felt their throats needed rest from regular singing. Cissy Burton decided that she preferred a seat by mamma. Poor Cissy was a nervous little thing, her mother said, quite unused to Mr. Smith's brusque ways; dear Mr. Pemberton had always been so considerate of people's feelings. It is true that Mr. Smith had been rather brusque. He told her savagely one day that she was always half a tone behind, and sang with no more expression than a hand-organ! Nor was it the choir alone, who were the subjects of these home thrusts. Handel Beethoven Smith carried things with a high hand in every direction. He told Dr. Powers, who asked to have the chant, "Suffer little children to come unto me," rendered the Sabbath after the funeral of his little child, that they had sung it but three Sabbaths before at somebody's request, and he couldn't afford to establish such a precedent as that; a leader of a choir couldn't be all the time practising funeral chants because people's babies would die. That "Suffer little children" was nothing but trash, anyway; ought never to be sung; he had strained a point to sing it once, and he didn't mean to get caught in that way again.
I must do Mr. Smith the justice to explain that when he called the chant in question "trash," he referred to the words, not the music. Words were the merest nothings to him; indeed, he had been heard to say that all music ought to be rendered in Italian, that the clumsiness of the English tongue might be lost sight of. Handel Beethoven Smith had a very cultivated ear.
Dr. Powers was by no means the only senior whom Mr. Smith subdued with savage speech. The long-suffering minister ventured one day to suggest to the organist the wish that he would not send the people out of church to the sound of music which seemed to belong to the dance, or the parade, or some festive scene, when the organist assured him that he was himself under orders, that he did not dare to hint to the leader that his soul was his own, much less his fingers. After due consideration, and also after the minister had preached a sermon on the betrayal, and heard a young lady exclaim, as she fluttered down the aisle a few minutes after its solemn closing, "Oh, isn't that music perfectly exquisite! I can hardly keep my feet from whirling off with me in a waltz," he determined to brave the fierce Handel Beethoven himself; and little did he gain by the operation. The great artist informed him that he did not presume to dictate to him what texts he should select, nor, indeed, how long he should make his discourses; however much he might dislike their length, he was in the habit of leaving that matter entirely to the minister's judgment, and he desired and expected to be treated in the same way as regarded the music. If the minister would see to it that his part of the service was properly managed, be sure that he, Handel Beethoven Smith, was entirely capable of attending to his part.
Neither did the constant resignations from the choir apparently disturb the leader in the least. Indeed, he sometimes, with an approach to almost complaisance, remarked that they were well rid of such an one, and the choir improved with each departure. He had no very high opinion of chorus choirs, anyway; you could never do really classic work with a mixed chorus.
He imported in the place of the irate bass singer a young man with a faultless voice and dress. To be sure, this importation created dismay; it was whispered abroad that the owner of the divine voice supported himself by selling fancy liquors in a fashionable up-town saloon! Could it be endured that he should roll out the praises of God in our choir on Sundays, and deal out liquid death to our young men during the week? There were many who thought it could not, and Deacon Slocumb was appointed chairman of a committee to interview the savage leader, who, after hearing his somewhat lengthy complaint, silenced him with the severe statement: "You are laboring under a foolish mistake, Deacon Slocumb. I engaged the young man because of his voice, not because of his business. He does not sell his fancy drinks in our choir on Sunday, and it is a form of business which has not, as yet, affected his throat. He has a very cultured voice, which can be said of very few singers in this town, I assure you; music is at a very low ebb here, and lower nowhere than in your church. I tell you frankly I do not think there is a man among you who knows real music when he hears it, and therefore it is absurdly impossible that you should be permitted to dictate to me."
The deacon was silenced, but not convinced. Still, we had been through such seas of trouble with our choir that we trembled at the thought of touching it. And then, there was dear old Auntie Barber, who murmured: "Well, the young man gets to church twice a day by this means; and they do say he hasn't been in the habit of going to church for years. If he has a mother, poor soul, she must be glad of something that brings him within sound of the Gospel." And yet Auntie Barber remembered, within her honest, sinking heart, how they had rejoiced in bringing the affable Theodore under the sound of the Gospel, and how disastrous had been the apparent results.
There came a morning in our church which I am inclined to think was a triumph to our highly cultivated leader. One by one the chorus had slipped away, until now there were left just four singers—the leading soprano, the best alto we had, the divine bass voice of the saloon clerk, and for tenor, Handel Beethoven himself. That he was satisfied with the situation he showed in his face, and the first piece they rendered certainly astonished the congregation. Joe Slocumb, who was learning to take notes of what was said and sung, for the benefit of the dear old grandma at home, gave the following copy of the words: