Mrs. Ward came to the luncheon table the next day, holding up three pink tickets.
“A treat for the musical ones,” she said, gaily. “Mrs. Chester has just sent around these tickets for the matinée performance of that little musical wonder, this afternoon. For some reason they are unable to use them.”
“Hurrah!” said Marjorie, clapping her hands in true Cricket fashion, “I’ve been dying to hear him. Oh, Edith, people say he’s the greatest dear!”
“I thought you and Edith and Eunice could go, dear,” said Mrs. Ward. “You will enjoy it better than the younger ones.”
“But don’t you want to go yourself, mamma?” asked Eunice, quickly.
“No; for you know papa and I heard him, two weeks ago, when we were in New York. He certainly is a wonder, Edith. I don’t care much about prodigies, as a rule, but his playing is very wonderful. New York was wild over him.”
“I’ve wanted to hear him so much,” said Edith, enthusiastically. “It’s perfectly lovely!”
“Then I’ll take you two down-town with me,” said Mrs. Ward to Cricket and Hilda. “Will it be too cold for ice-cream?”
The three matinée girls got off in good time. As they entered the lobby, they encountered Mrs. Drayton.
“I’m so glad to see you, girls,” she said, in her cordial way. “I came early, and have been waiting here in hope of seeing some of you. I am going to the dressing-room, to see the little pianist, during the intermission, and I thought if I could find any of you, you would like to go too.”
The girls fairly gasped. To go behind the scenes into that wonderful, mystical dressing-room, and actually see and touch a real, live individual that came out on the stage and played! Could it be true?
“Oh, Mrs. Drayton!” they all cried, breathlessly.
“I have seen him several times,” Mrs. Drayton went on. “The little fellow, with his father and some others, lunched with us yesterday. He is a perfect little dear. Just as childlike and sweet as if he never had been before the public at all.”
Mrs. Drayton’s husband, though a prominent lawyer, was a fine amateur violinist, and he kept closely in touch with all musical matters. His house was always a centre for amateur musicians, and he often entertained professionals.
“How lovely of you, Mrs. Drayton!” exclaimed Marjorie, enthusiastically. “It will be just delightful to see that cunning thing off the stage!”
This bit of thoughtfulness was just like Mrs. Drayton.
“I have a little box of toys for him,” she went on, showing the corner of a white paper parcel under her long cloak. “We will take them in to him during the intermission. Where are your seats, Marjorie? Let me see your tickets. Oh, yes. Fortunately, they are near mine. You can get up and come out into the aisle when I do.”
In due course of the programme, the marvellous ten-year-old came forward to take his place at the piano, looking ludicrously tiny among the big German musicians. The grand piano seemed to swallow him up as he stood by it for a moment, bowing in a grave, self-possessed, yet childlike manner, in response to the applause that greeted him. He had a sweet, serene little face, with dark brown hair falling over his forehead. His broad lace collar made him look still younger than he really was.
He turned, after his bow, and climbed upon the piano-stool, settling himself with his small hands folded in his lap. Then he awaited the signal to begin, as composedly as if no large audience listened breathlessly for his first notes.
When the number was finished, he turned sidewise on the stool, and bowed to the audience, with his little feet swinging. At the renewed applause, he slipped down, bowing with a funny, quaint little gesture of his hands, and then turned and climbed to his perch again. Some one had started to lift him up, but he had put him aside with a dignified little motion. After the third number, his last in the first part, he slipped down again, made a hasty little bow, and scampered away like a flash, amid mingled laughter and applause.
At last came the intermission. Mrs. Drayton, followed by the girls, made her way to the dressing-room. She was well-known to the attendants, so she had no difficulty.
The Boy, the marvellous little musician, sat on the floor playing with a little train of cars that went choo-choo-ing over the carpet, propelled by steam made from real water in the tiny boiler.
“Look out for my cars there,” he exclaimed, with a funny, foreign accent, as his visitors entered, not even glancing up at them in his absorbed interest. The lad’s father stood by the door.
“Get up, my son, and greet these gracious ladies,” said the father, in German, as he turned and spoke to Mrs. Drayton, himself. The Boy got up lingeringly, with a most bored expression, but his face changed and brightened as he recognised his kind friend, with whom he felt quite well acquainted. He sprang forward quickly, and, throwing his arms about her neck, he kissed her repeatedly in his pretty, foreign fashion. The girls looked on, amazed enough that he proved to be just an ordinary, every-day little boy.
“I thought we’d find him reading Beethoven’s life, or, at least, studying the score,” whispered Marjorie to Edith. “Just imagine that genius sitting down on the floor and playing cars!”
“I’ve brought these young ladies to see you,” said Mrs. Drayton, putting the little fellow down. “Will you kiss them, dear?”
Marjorie and Edith and Eunice, all awe-struck at the idea of kissing a genius, bent down to the dear little boy, who dutifully kissed each one of them, first upon one cheek and then upon the other, in foreign fashion, as if it were a performance he was very used to.
“What have you brought me?” he demanded, in German, of Mrs. Drayton, standing before her in boy fashion, with his small feet somewhat apart, and his hands deep in his pocket.
“We all spoil him by always bringing him something, I suppose,” said Mrs. Drayton to the girls, laughing at his tone, as she laid the box she had brought in his hands. He eagerly tore off the paper and the cover. The box contained a curious mechanical toy, which the Boy seized with delight. He immediately sat down on the floor to examine it.
Just at this moment, the strains of the violins sounded again, and the call-boy came to say that he must go in a moment.
The Boy uttered an impatient exclamation that was equal to “Oh, bother!” in English, but he paid no other attention to his summons. His father was talking to Mrs. Drayton, and did not hear the call-boy enter or leave.
In a moment, the call-boy came again.
“Can’t they wait a minute?” the Boy demanded impatiently, in English, which he spoke very well. “I must get this together. It’s almost done.”
The applause of the audience came to their ears. The call-boy repeated the summons in great impatience, knowing that he would be scolded for presumably not having given long enough notice.
“Very well,” said the Boy, getting up reluctantly. “Please go not till I return, gracious ladies. I will play fast. I do so much wish to see this strange thing together,” and off the child scampered, leaving the three girls staring in amazement at the remarkable manners of a prodigy.
“He’s a real little boy,” said Edith, drawing a long breath of surprise. “To see him playing with these toys, and then imagine what he can do with those wonderful little fingers of his! Listen!” as the wonderful strains floated in.
“Isn’t he a darling?” exclaimed Marjorie enthusiastically. “He isn’t spoiled a bit!”
The boy’s father had left the room, and Mrs. Drayton joined the girls.
“He is very carefully managed and trained,” she said. “He is allowed to see very few people, on the whole, and as he has played before an audience ever since he was five years old, it is nothing to him. They want to keep him simple and unspoiled.”
If the girls had been in their seats, they would have been amused to see the Boy come half running on the stage. He made a funny little sidewise bow, and climbed upon the piano-stool. He had already kept the audience waiting a full minute, but he placidly took up a programme that lay on the piano, ran down it with his finger, found the place, creased the paper across, laid it down, and instantly was the inspired little musician again. It was a magnificent concerted piece, and the programme announced that the child had seen it, for the first time, the day before, but his tiny fingers interpreted the large, grave measures in a way that held the great audience breathless. In a long, elaborate bit, that belonged to the first violin, he would soundlessly follow the notes with the fingers of one hand, as if in pure enjoyment of the swift motion.
The selection came to an end at last, with a grand succession of chords. The instant the last notes had died away, the child slipped down, and ran away without his bow, before any one could stop him. He darted into the dressing-room.
“Are you here yet, gracious ladies?” he said, breathlessly. “I’m so glad! Now I want to get this together; I don’t play next time. Do you hear the clapping? They want me to come back and play again, but I shan’t till it’s time. See! this is the way it goes!”
Just then, amid the prolonged applause of the audience, some one came to lead him back to make his acknowledgments, and play again.
“I don’t want to, now, and I shan’t,” he said, positively. “It isn’t my turn. Let the next one play.”
Another messenger arrived, here, with orders for him to come at once, as the applause renewed itself, growing still more insistent.
“I’m busy,” the Boy said, sitting still. Just then his father came in, and bade him go at once. Reluctantly he put down his plaything, and went off to the stage. He made his way down the centre, between the musicians, bowing this way and that, and making his funny little foreign gestures with his hands. The applause redoubled at the sight of him, and a shower of flowers fell about him. He picked up a big bouquet of roses, that fell at his feet, and then saying perfectly distinctly to the first violin:
“There! that’s all I’m going to do,” he marched off again. Everybody laughed and applauded, although, of course, only the nearest musicians heard what he said. The conductor gave the signal for the next number, and the performance went on. By this time, Mrs. Drayton had taken the girls back to their seats.
After the last regular number of the programme, some musician was invited to come from the audience and give the Boy a simple theme for him to improvise upon. At this request, a well-known amateur musician, an old resident of the city, came forward, and went upon the stage. He was a tall, peculiar-looking man, with long hair lying on his shoulders. He sat down on the piano-stool with an odd little mannerism, which he always had while playing, bending his head forward in a funny, rather affected way. For a theme, he played “Home, Sweet Home,” very slowly. The Boy listened, with his head on one side, in his little, bird-like manner. When Professor Sands had played the air through once, he repeated it more rapidly. As he began, the boy put out his hand impatiently to stop him, but the professor played on. Whereupon, the Boy gave the pedal a petulant little kick, as if to say:
“What in the world is he playing that easy thing over again for? How many times does he think I need to hear a theme?”
But the professor finished it, and then resigned his seat to the child. As soon as he was seated, he placed his fingers stiffly on the keys, with his head bent forward, in an irresistibly funny imitation of the professor’s manner, and played the theme through just as slowly as he had; then he straightened up, and darted through it again at lightning speed. Next he wove it into the most elaborate improvisations, recurring constantly to the theme. Whenever he played, even a dozen notes of it, he instantly dropped into Professor Sands’s mannerism. The audience were soon in convulsions of laughter, and even the professor himself, recognising the joke, laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. Not a muscle of the Boy’s face moved. At last he flashed into “Yankee Doodle,” slipped again to “Home, Sweet Home,” playing it so swiftly that it was only a ripple of melody, dropped, then, into his imitation of Professor Sands again, and finished with a series of chords so rich and full that it seemed scarcely possible those tiny fingers could evoke them.
Between laughter and applause the audience made the roof ring. The Boy stood, still grave and demure as always, with his folded hands hanging in front of him, but those nearest caught the wicked little twinkle in the dark eyes. Of course, the three girls clapped their gloves into rags.
“Did you ever see such a perfectly fascinating darling?” sighed Marjorie, in pure delight, as the child was finally allowed to leave the stage.
“Marjorie, do you feel that you can ever touch the piano again, when you think of that little mouse sitting up there and playing like that, without half trying?” said Edith mournfully. “It’s just—just presumptuous to try!” This was said as they were coming down the steps, on the way out.
“Indeed, that is never the way to feel after listening to a genius,” said Mrs. Drayton, cheerily. “Certainly you cannot expect to rival playing like that, but it should be an inspiration to you, to lift you up, and make you do your very best yourself.”
“But one’s very bestest is poor and weak after that,” said Marjorie, earnestly. “I’m simply ashamed to look at a piano.”
“Do not feel that. Do your best faithfully, and be patient with yourself. One need never be ashamed of one’s best. Fortunately, it’s no disgrace not to be a genius, which is a great consolation for all of us commonplace people. You need only be ashamed of a low standard. Aim high, and keep your eyes fixed on your goal, my girls. That’s the secret of success.”