And it was Summer, beautiful Summer!" Those were
the closing words of Thea's favorite fairy tale, and
she thought of them as she ran out into the world one
Saturday morning in May, her music book under her arm.
She was going to the Kohlers' to take her lesson, but she
was in no hurry.
It was in the summer that one really lived. Then all
the little overcrowded houses were opened wide, and the
wind blew through them with sweet, earthy smells of
garden-planting. The town looked as if it had just been
washed. People were out painting their fences. The cotton-
wood trees were a-flicker with sticky, yellow little leaves,
and the feathery tamarisks were in pink bud. With the
warm weather came freedom for everybody. People were
dug up, as it were. The very old people, whom one had not
seen all winter, came out and sunned themselves in the
yard. The double windows were taken off the houses, the
tormenting flannels in which children had been encased all
winter were put away in boxes, and the youngsters felt a
pleasure in the cool cotton things next their skin.
Thea had to walk more than a mile to reach the Kohlers'
house, a very pleasant mile out of town toward the glitter-
ing sand hills,--yellow this morning, with lines of deep
violet where the clefts and valleys were. She followed the
sidewalk to the depot at the south end of the town; then
took the road east to the little group of adobe houses where
the Mexicans lived, then dropped into a deep ravine; a dry
sand creek, across which the railroad track ran on a trestle.
Beyond that gulch, on a little rise of ground that faced the
open sandy plain, was the Kohlers' house, where Professor
Wunsch lived. Fritz Kohler was the town tailor, one of the
first settlers. He had moved there, built a little house and
made a garden, when Moonstone was first marked down on
the map. He had three sons, but they now worked on the
railroad and were stationed in distant cities. One of them
had gone to work for the Santa Fe, and lived in New
Mexico.
Mrs. Kohler seldom crossed the ravine and went into the
town except at Christmas-time, when she had to buy pres-
ents and Christmas cards to send to her old friends in
Freeport, Illinois. As she did not go to church, she did not
possess such a thing as a hat. Year after year she wore the
same red hood in winter and a black sunbonnet in summer.
She made her own dresses; the skirts came barely to her
shoe-tops, and were gathered as full as they could possibly
be to the waistband. She preferred men's shoes, and usu-
ally wore the cast-offs of one of her sons. She had never
learned much English, and her plants and shrubs were her
companions. She lived for her men and her garden. Beside
that sand gulch, she had tried to reproduce a bit of her own
village in the Rhine Valley. She hid herself behind the
growth she had fostered, lived under the shade of what she
had planted and watered and pruned. In the blaze of the
open plain she was stupid and blind like an owl. Shade,
shade; that was what she was always planning and making.
Behind the high tamarisk hedge, her garden was a jungle
of verdure in summer. Above the cherry trees and peach
trees and golden plums stood the windmill, with its tank
on stilts, which kept all this verdure alive. Outside, the
sage-brush grew up to the very edge of the garden, and the
sand was always drifting up to the tamarisks.
Every one in Moonstone was astonished when the
Kohlers took the wandering music-teacher to live with
them. In seventeen years old Fritz had never had a crony,
except the harness-maker and Spanish Johnny. This
Wunsch came from God knew where,--followed Spanish
Johnny into town when that wanderer came back from one
of his tramps. Wunsch played in the dance orchestra,
tuned pianos, and gave lessons. When Mrs. Kohler rescued
him, he was sleeping in a dirty, unfurnished room over one
of the saloons, and he had only two shirts in the world.
Once he was under her roof, the old woman went at him as
she did at her garden. She sewed and washed and mended
for him, and made him so clean and respectable that he was
able to get a large class of pupils and to rent a piano. As
soon as he had money ahead, he sent to the Narrow Gauge
lodging-house, in Denver, for a trunkful of music which
had been held there for unpaid board. With tears in his
eyes the old man--he was not over fifty, but sadly bat-
tered--told Mrs. Kohler that he asked nothing better of
God than to end his days with her, and to be buried in the
garden, under her linden trees. They were not American
basswood, but the European linden, which has honey-
colored blooms in summer, with a fragrance that sur-
passes all trees and flowers and drives young people wild
with joy.
Thea was reflecting as she walked along that had it not
been for Professor Wunsch she might have lived on for
years in Moonstone without ever knowing the Kohlers,
without ever seeing their garden or the inside of their
house. Besides the cuckoo clock,--which was wonderful
enough, and which Mrs. Kohler said she kept for "company
when she was lonesome,"--the Kohlers had in their house
the most wonderful thing Thea had ever seen--but of that
later.
Professor Wunsch went to the houses of his other pupils
to give them their lessons, but one morning he told Mrs.
Kronborg that Thea had talent, and that if she came to
him he could teach her in his slippers, and that would
be better. Mrs. Kronborg was a strange woman. That
word "talent," which no one else in Moonstone, not even
Dr. Archie, would have understood, she comprehended
perfectly. To any other woman there, it would have meant
that a child must have her hair curled every day and must
play in public. Mrs. Kronborg knew it meant that Thea
must practice four hours a day. A child with talent must
be kept at the piano, just as a child with measles must be
kept under the blankets. Mrs. Kronborg and her three
sisters had all studied piano, and all sang well, but none of
them had talent. Their father had played the oboe in an
orchestra in Sweden, before he came to America to better
his fortunes. He had even known Jenny Lind. A child with
talent had to be kept at the piano; so twice a week in sum-
mer and once a week in winter Thea went over the gulch to
the Kohlers', though the Ladies' Aid Society thought it
was not proper for their preacher's daughter to go "where
there was so much drinking." Not that the Kohler sons
ever so much as looked at a glass of beer. They were
ashamed of their old folks and got out into the world as
fast as possible; had their clothes made by a Denver tailor
and their necks shaved up under their hair and forgot
the past. Old Fritz and Wunsch, however, indulged in a
friendly bottle pretty often. The two men were like com-
rades; perhaps the bond between them was the glass wherein
lost hopes are found; perhaps it was common memories of
another country; perhaps it was the grapevine in the gar-
den--knotty, fibrous shrub, full of homesickness and senti-
ment, which the Germans have carried around the world
with them.
As Thea approached the house she peeped between the
pink sprays of the tamarisk hedge and saw the Professor
and Mrs. Kohler in the garden, spading and raking. The
garden looked like a relief-map now, and gave no indication
of what it would be in August; such a jungle! Pole beans
and potatoes and corn and leeks and kale and red cabbage
--there would even be vegetables for which there is no
American name. Mrs. Kohler was always getting by mail
packages of seeds from Freeport and from the old country.
Then the flowers! There were big sunflowers for the canary
bird, tiger lilies and phlox and zinnias and lady's-slippers
and portulaca and hollyhocks,--giant hollyhocks. Beside
the fruit trees there was a great umbrella-shaped catalpa,
and a balm-of-Gilead, two lindens, and even a ginka,--a
rigid, pointed tree with leaves shaped like butterflies, which
shivered, but never bent to the wind.
This morning Thea saw to her delight that the two ole-
ander trees, one white and one red, had been brought up
from their winter quarters in the cellar. There is hardly a
German family in the most arid parts of Utah, New Mex-
ico, Arizona, but has its oleander trees. However loutish
the American-born sons of the family may be, there was
never one who refused to give his muscle to the back-break-
ing task of getting those tubbed trees down into the cellar in
the fall and up into the sunlight in the spring. They may
strive to avert the day, but they grapple with the tub at
last.
When Thea entered the gate, her professor leaned his
spade against the white post that supported the turreted
dove-house, and wiped his face with his shirt-sleeve; some-
way he never managed to have a handkerchief about him.
Wunsch was short and stocky, with something rough and
bear-like about his shoulders. His face was a dark, bricky
red, deeply creased rather than wrinkled, and the skin was
like loose leather over his neck band--he wore a brass
collar button but no collar. His hair was cropped close;
iron-gray bristles on a bullet-like head. His eyes were
always suffused and bloodshot. He had a coarse, scornful
mouth, and irregular, yellow teeth, much worn at the edges.
His hands were square and red, seldom clean, but always
alive, impatient, even sympathetic.
"MORGEN," he greeted his pupil in a businesslike way,
put on a black alpaca coat, and conducted her at once to
the piano in Mrs. Kohler's sitting-room. He twirled the
stool to the proper height, pointed to it, and sat down in a
wooden chair beside Thea.
"The scale of B flat major," he directed, and then fell
into an attitude of deep attention. Without a word his
pupil set to work.
To Mrs. Kohler, in the garden, came the cheerful sound
of effort, of vigorous striving. Unconsciously she wielded
her rake more lightly. Occasionally she heard the teacher's
voice. "Scale of E minor. . . . WEITER, WEITER! . . . IMMER
I hear the thumb, like a lame foot. WEITER . . . WEITER, once;
. . . SCHON! The chords, quick!"
The pupil did not open her mouth until they began the
second movement of the Clementi sonata, when she remon-
strated in low tones about the way he had marked the
fingering of a passage.
"It makes no matter what you think," replied her
teacher coldly. "There is only one right way. The thumb
there. EIN, ZWEI, DREI, VIER," etc. Then for an hour there
was no further interruption.
At the end of the lesson Thea turned on her stool and
leaned her arm on the keyboard. They usually had a little
talk after the lesson.
Herr Wunsch grinned. "How soon is it you are free from
school? Then we make ahead faster, eh?"
"First week in June. Then will you give me the `Invi-
tation to the Dance'?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "It makes no matter. If
you want him, you play him out of lesson hours."
"All right." Thea fumbled in her pocket and brought
out a crumpled slip of paper. "What does this mean, please?
I guess it's Latin."
Wunsch blinked at the line penciled on the paper.
"Wherefrom you get this?" he asked gruffly.
"Out of a book Dr. Archie gave me to read. It's all Eng-
lish but that. Did you ever see it before?" she asked,
watching his face.
"Yes. A long time ago," he muttered, scowling.
"Ovidius!" He took a stub of lead pencil from his vest
pocket, steadied his hand by a visible effort, and under
the words
"LENTE CURRITE, LENTE CURRITE, NOCTIS EQUI,"
he wrote in a clear, elegant Gothic hand,--
"GO SLOWLY, GO SLOWLY, YE STEEDS OF THE NIGHT."
He put the pencil back in his pocket and continued to stare
at the Latin. It recalled the poem, which he had read as a
student, and thought very fine. There were treasures of
memory which no lodging-house keeper could attach. One
carried things about in one's head, long after one's linen
could be smuggled out in a tuning-bag. He handed the
paper back to Thea. "There is the English, quite elegant,"
he said, rising.
Mrs. Kohler stuck her head in at the door, and Thea slid
off the stool. "Come in, Mrs. Kohler," she called, "and
show me the piece-picture."
The old woman laughed, pulled off her big gardening-
gloves, and pushed Thea to the lounge before the object of
her delight. The "piece-picture," which hung on the wall
and nearly covered one whole end of the room, was the
handiwork of Fritz Kohler. He had learned his trade under
an old-fashioned tailor in Magdeburg who required from
each of his apprentices a thesis: that is, before they left his
shop, each apprentice had to copy in cloth some well-
known German painting, stitching bits of colored stuff
together on a linen background; a kind of mosaic. The
pupil was allowed to select his subject, and Fritz Kohler
had chosen a popular painting of Napoleon's retreat from
Moscow. The gloomy Emperor and his staff were repre-
sented as crossing a stone bridge, and behind them was the
blazing city, the walls and fortresses done in gray cloth
with orange tongues of flame darting about the domes and
minarets. Napoleon rode his white horse; Murat, in Ori-
ental dress, a bay charger. Thea was never tired of exam-
ining this work, of hearing how long it had taken Fritz to
make it, how much it had been admired, and what narrow
escapes it had had from moths and fire. Silk, Mrs. Kohler
explained, would have been much easier to manage than
woolen cloth, in which it was often hard to get the right
shades. The reins of the horses, the wheels of the spurs,
the brooding eyebrows of the Emperor, Murat's fierce
mustaches, the great shakos of the Guard, were all worked
out with the minutest fidelity. Thea's admiration for this
picture had endeared her to Mrs. Kohler. It was now many
years since she used to point out its wonders to her own
little boys. As Mrs. Kohler did not go to church, she never
heard any singing, except the songs that floated over from
Mexican Town, and Thea often sang for her after the lesson
was over. This morning Wunsch pointed to the piano.
"On Sunday, when I go by the church, I hear you sing
something."
Thea obediently sat down on the stool again and began,
"COME, YE DISCONSOLATE." Wunsch listened thoughtfully,
his hands on his knees. Such a beautiful child's voice!
Old Mrs. Kohler's face relaxed in a smile of happiness;
she half closed her eyes. A big fly was darting in and out
of the window; the sunlight made a golden pool on the
rag carpet and bathed the faded cretonne pillows on the
lounge, under the piece-picture. "EARTH HAS NO SORROW
THAT HEAVEN CANNOT HEAL," the song died away.
"That is a good thing to remember," Wunsch shook him-
self. "You believe that?" looking quizzically at Thea.
She became confused and pecked nervously at a black
key with her middle finger. "I don't know. I guess so,"
she murmured.
Her teacher rose abruptly. "Remember, for next time,
thirds. You ought to get up earlier."
That night the air was so warm that Fritz and Herr
Wunsch had their after-supper pipe in the grape arbor,
smoking in silence while the sound of fiddles and guitars
came across the ravine from Mexican Town. Long after
Fritz and his old Paulina had gone to bed, Wunsch sat
motionless in the arbor, looking up through the woolly
vine leaves at the glittering machinery of heaven.
"LENTE CURRITE, NOCTIS EQUI."
That line awoke many memories. He was thinking of
youth; of his own, so long gone by, and of his pupil's, just
beginning. He would even have cherished hopes for her,
except that he had become superstitious. He believed that
whatever he hoped for was destined not to be; that his
affection brought ill-fortune, especially to the young; that
if he held anything in his thoughts, he harmed it. He had
taught in music schools in St. Louis and Kansas City, where
the shallowness and complacency of the young misses had
maddened him. He had encountered bad manners and bad
faith, had been the victim of sharpers of all kinds, was
dogged by bad luck. He had played in orchestras that were
never paid and wandering opera troupes which disbanded
penniless. And there was always the old enemy, more
relentless than the others. It was long since he had wished
anything or desired anything beyond the necessities of the
body. Now that he was tempted to hope for another, he
felt alarmed and shook his head.
It was his pupil's power of application, her rugged will,
that interested him. He had lived for so long among people
whose sole ambition was to get something for nothing that
he had learned not to look for seriousness in anything. Now
that he by chance encountered it, it recalled standards, am-
bitions, a society long forgot. What was it she reminded
him of? A yellow flower, full of sunlight, perhaps. No; a
thin glass full of sweet-smelling, sparkling Moselle wine. He
seemed to see such a glass before him in the arbor, to watch
the bubbles rising and breaking, like the silent discharge
of energy in the nerves and brain, the rapid florescence in
young blood--Wunsch felt ashamed and dragged his slip-
pers along the path to the kitchen, his eyes on the ground.
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