Clergy -- Fiction; Iowa -- Fiction; Mississippi River Valley -- Fiction
“N', no!” she declared. “I teach you because I like you, because I like
all praise music shall be good music. N', no! We will not think about
money; we will think about great, grand music. You will be my leetle St.
Cecilia; yes?” Not until she had consulted David, and had been assured
that accepting such a favor from the niece of the priest was not at
all wrong, would Miss Hurley agree. Then the lessons began, Miss Hurley
always “my leetle St. Cecilia” to Mademoiselle. They were a strongly
contrasted pair: Mademoiselle Moran stout, black-haired, with powerful
arms and fingers; Miss Hurley a mere wisp of humanity, hair already
gray, and with scarce strength to handle the stops and keys.
When first she entered the huge St. Bridget's Miss Hurley cringed, as if
she entered a forbidden place. The great stained windows permitted but
little light to enter; here and there some woman knelt low on the floor,
crossing herself. Mademoiselle walked to the organ loft with a brisk,
businesslike tread and Miss Hurley followed her timidly. From somewhere
Father Moran appeared, smiling, and patted Miss Hurley's shoulder. No
man had patted Miss Hurley's shoulder for many years, but she was far
from resenting it. It was like a good wish. Then Mademoiselle reached up
and drew the soft green curtains across the front of the organ loft and
lo! they were alone. The lesson began.
It needed but that one first lesson to tell Mademoiselle that her
“leetle St. Cecilia” would never play “great, grand music” on a
large pipe organ. It was as if you were to undertake to teach a child
trigonometry and discovered he did not know the multiplication table
beyond seven times five. Miss Hurley hardly knew the rudiments of music;
harmony, thoroughbass and all the deeper things, that Mademoiselle had
learned so long ago that they were part of her nature now, were absolute
Greek to Miss Hurley. But, worse than all this, Miss Hurley had not the
physique of an organist. She was physically inadequate.
Such news invariably leaks out. Long before Lucille Hardcome had managed
to coax the pipe organ out of Sam Wiggett's purse it was known that
Miss Hurley was “taking lessons” from Mademoiselle and that she was
not strong enough to play a pipe organ properly. For her part, had Miss
Hurley been any other person, Mademoiselle would have thrown up her
hands and turned her back on the impossible task, but she liked Miss
Jane sincerely. I think she loved the little old maid. It must be
remembered that St. Bridget's was Irish and in those days many of the
Irish in Riverbank were fresh from the peat bogs and potato fields, and
Mademoiselle, before coming to care for her uncle's house, had lived in
the midst of France's best. It is no wonder she craved even such crambs
of culture as Miss Hurley had gathered or that she loved the little
woman. In return she gave Miss Jane all she could.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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