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It moved in a tiny gavotte, or looked on at a minuet measure; it wailed, yet without being positively heard, in a little dirge of itself; it broadened into a march, it shouted in a bravura of rapid octaves, and finally asserted itself, heard once more, over a great scale base of bells.
Louderer, the kinder, and myself piled in; Mrs. O'Shaughnessy bestrode Chief, Gavotte stalked on ahead to pick our way, and we were off. It was a long, tedious climb, and I wished over and over that I had stayed at home; but it was altogether on Baby's account. I was so afraid that he would suffer, but he kept warm as toast.
As the Emperor is a lover of the "classical" in painting and sculpture, it is not strange to find him an admirer of the classical in music and recommending it to his people as the best form of musical education. He holds that there is much in common between it and the folk-songs of Germany. At Court he revived classical dances like the minuet and the gavotte.
Something about the "Yiddisher gavotte," and saying, "We been going to dances a lot, but last night the wife and I wanted to be quiet, so I bought me two front seats for Grant's Tomb!" It was tremendous. Father and Mother couldn't make many jokes, these days, but they listened and laughed.
A big jug, an Apostel-Krug, of Kruessen, was solemnly dancing a minuet with a plump Faenza jar; a tall Dutch clock was going through a gavotte with a spindle-legged ancient chair; a very droll porcelain figure of Littenhausen was bowing to a very stiff soldier in terre cuite of Ulm; an old violin of Cremona was playing itself, and a queer little shrill plaintive music that thought itself merry came from a painted spinet covered with faded roses; some gilt Spanish leather had got up on the wall and laughed; a Dresden mirror was tripping about, crowned with flowers, and a Japanese bonze was riding along on a griffin; a slim Venetian rapier had come to blows with a stout Ferrara sabre, all about a little pale-faced chit of a damsel in white Nymphenburg china; and a portly Franconian pitcher in grès gris was calling aloud, "Oh, these Italians! always at feud!"
"A great deal," the eldest answered gravely; "I can play the fiddle, and we can all learn to dance; we'll go to dance the gavotte in the Luxembourg Gardens whenever it is fine the true gavotte as it was danced when Madame de Sevigne drove up in a painted coach drawn by six horses, and entered the courtyard of her hotel decorated with bas-reliefs by Jean Goujon."
Louderer's wurst, which she had been calmly carrying around on her arm like a hoop and which was delicious with the bread that Gavotte toasted on long sticks; we had steaming coffee, and we were all happy; even Baby clapped his hands and crowed at the unusual sight of an open fire. After supper Gavotte took a little stroll and returned with a couple of grouse for our breakfast.
The very first present Gavotte handed out was a pair of trousers for eight-years-old Brig, but he just stood and stared at the tree until his brother next in size, with an eye to the main chance, got behind him and pushed him forward, all the time exclaiming, "Go on, can't you! They ain't doin' nothin' to you, they's just doin' somethin' for you." Still Brig would not put out his hand.
He went back to the garret and sweet liberty having had his taste of luxury, but miserable in it all wondering how a gavotte or a minuet could make a man forget that he was living in a city where thirty thousand human beings were constantly only one meal beyond the sniff of starvation.
Dear little Cora Belle came often to see me, sometimes bringing me a little of Grandpa's latest cure, which I received on faith, for, of course, I could not really swallow any of it. Zebbie's nephew, Parker Carter, came out, spent the summer with him, and they have now gone back to Yell County, leaving Gavotte in charge again. Gavotte had a most interesting and prosperous summer.
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