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Cynthy was so pleased with this remark, that she did penance in her mind for a week afterwards. It was so wicked to enjoy one's self out of class-meeting! At the singing-school and at the church August waited as impatiently as possible for some sign of recognition from Julia. He little knew the fear that beset her.
My disgust and disappointment afforded great amusement to my friends; but in spite of all my entreaties, they could not be induced to leave their punch and a warm fire to accompany me in my pilgrimage to the singing-school. We took dinner at four o'clock, and the cloth was scarcely drawn, when my musical friend made his appearance with the old mare, to take me along to the school.
Good Heavens, was that uncouth figure the voluble, buoyant, flashy magnate of the old days? It was. "Sellin' organs agin," he said briefly. "And teaching singing-school?" The dethroned king of finance grinned. "Sure! What you doin'?" "Nothing." "Goin' to stay long?" "No." "Well, see you again. So long. Git up!"
One happy result arose throughout New England from the victory of the ardent advocates of the "singing by rule," the establishment of the New England "singing-school," that outlet for the pent-up, amusement-lacking lives of young people in colonial times.
Dear country home, where every sound is ministry; the morning cock and cackling hen, the birds' hopeful morning song, the twittering swallow, noon's rest and healthy appetite, the lowing cattle, the birds' thankful evening note, the village bell old curfew's echo, the pattering on the pane, the wind in the treetops, the watchdog's distant bark for lullaby, and quiet restful sleep; his greatest sports those of the evening village-green the apple bee, the husking, and the weekly singing-school.
"What a damn disreputable business your commerce is, anyway! John, I can't afford to lose that property or I'd be a pauper, sir, a pauper peddling organs and sewing-machines and maybe teaching singing-school." The colonel's face caught a rift of sunshine as he added, "You know I did that once before I was married and came West taught singing-school."
If a fellow likes me, he gives me a quince, or a big apple; but, then, Mara, there ain't any fellows round here that are fit to speak to." "I'm sure, Sally, there always is a train following you everywhere, at singing-school and Thursday lecture." "Yes but what do I care for 'em?" said Sally, with a toss of her head. "Why they follow me, I don't see.
And the singing-school where she was our shining ornament, and that blissful night when I stood up with her in the village church, while we sang our duet descriptive of the special virtues of some particular flower nominated in the cantata?
When the little girl was old enough to go to school, the big boy carried her books and gave her the rosiest apple out of his dinner-basket. He fought all her battles and wrote all her compositions; which latter, by the way, never gained her any great credit. When she was fifteen and he twenty he had his great reward in taking her twice a week during one happy winter to singing-school.
All the windows of the stores were open, and within the offices, with a little thinking, a little turn of the pen, and a little tracing in ink, men were magically warding off impending disaster, or adding thousands to the thousands accumulated already men, too, were writing without thinking, mechanically copying or posting, scribbling letters of form, with heads clear or heads aching, with hearts burning or cold; full of ambition and hope, or vaguely remembering country hill-sides and summer rambles a day's fishing a night's frolic Sunday-school singing-school, and the girl with the chip hat garlanded with sweet-brier; hearts longing and loving, regretting, hoping, and remembering, and all the while the faces above them calm and smooth, and the hands below them busily doing their part of the great work of the world.
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