You Should Worry Says John Henry

  CHAPTER X

  YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT A MUSICAL EVENING

  Say! did you ever stray away from home of an evening and go to one ofthose parlor riots?

  Friend wife called it a _musicale_, but to me it looked like a sessionof the Mexican congress in a boiler factory.

  They pulled it off at Mrs. Luella Frothingham's, over on the Drive.

  I like Luella and I like her husband, Jack Frothingham, so it's nosecret conclave of the Anvil Association when I whisper them wise thatthe next time they give a musical evening my address is Forest Avenue,corner of Foliage Street, in the woods.

  The Frothinghams are nice people and old friends and they have moremoney than some people have hay, but that doesn't give them a license tospoil one of my perfectly good evenings by sprinkling a lot of cannedmusic and fricasseed recitations all over it.

  The Frothinghams have a skeleton in their closet. Its name is Uncle Heckand he weighs 237--not bad for a skeleton. Uncle Heck is a Joe Morgan.His sole ambition in life is to become politely pickled and fall asleepdraped over a gold chair in the drawing room when there's high-classcompany present.

  For that reason the Frothinghams on state occasions put the skids underUncle Heck and run him off stage till after the final curtain.

  On some occasions Uncle Heck breaks through the bars and dashes into thescene of refinement with merry quip and jest to the confusion of hisrelatives and the ill-concealed amusement of their guests.

  This was one of those occasions.

  Early in the evening Jack took Uncle Heck to his room, sat him in frontof a quart of vintage, and left the old geezer there to slosh around inthe surf until sleep claimed him for its own.

  But after the wine was gone Uncle Heck put on the gloves with Morpheus,got the decision, marched down stairs and into the drawing room, wherehe immediately insisted upon being the life of the party.

  Uncle Heck moved and seconded that he sing the swan song from_Lohengrin_, but his idea of a swan was so much like a turkey gobblerthat loving friends slipped him the moccasins and elbowed him out of theroom.

  Then he went out in the butler's pantry, hoping to do an Omar Khayyamwith the grape, but, not finding any, he began to recite, "Down in theLehigh Valley me and my people grew; I was a blacksmith, Cap'n; yes, anda good one, too! Let me sit down a minute, a stone's got into myshoe----"

  But it wasn't a stone, and it didn't get into his shoe. It was a potatosalad and it got into his face when the Irish cook threw it at him forinterfering with her work.

  "I'm discouraged," murmured Uncle Heck, and presently he was sleepingwith magnificent noises on the sofa in the library.

  There were present at the battle in the drawing room Uncle Peter Grantand Aunt Martha; Hep Hardy and his diamond shirt studs; Bunch Jeffersonand his wife, Alice; Bud Hawley and his second wife; Phil Merton and histhird wife; Dave Mason and his stationary wife; Stub Wilson and hiswife, Jennie, who is Peaches' sister, and a few others who asked to havetheir names omitted.

  The mad revels were inaugurated by the Pippin Brothers, who attempted todrag some grouchy music out of guitars that didn't want to give up. ThePippin Brothers part their hair in the middle and always do the marchfrom "The Babes in Toyland" on their mandolins as an encore.

  If Victor Herbert ever catches them there'll be a couple of shinechord-chokers away to the bad.

  When the Pippin Brothers took a bow and backed off into a vase offlowers we were all invited to listen to a soprano solo by Miss ImogeneGlassface.

  When Imogene sings she makes faces at herself. When she needs a highnote she goes after it like a hen after a lady-bug. Imogene sang"Sleep, Sweetly Sleep!" and then kept us awake with her voice.

  Then we had Rufus Kellar Smith, the parlor prestidigitator. Rufus was abad boy.

  He cooked an omelette in a silk hat and when he handed the hat back toHep Hardy two poached eggs fell out and cuddled up in Hep's hair.

  Rufus apologized and said he'd do the trick over again if some one wouldlend him a hat, but nothing doing. We all preferred our eggs boiled.

  Then we had Claribel Montrose in select recitations. She was all themoney.

  Claribel grabbed "The Wreck of the Hesperus" between her pearly teethand shook it to death. Then she got a half-Nelson on Poe's "Raven" andput it out of business.

  Next she tried an imitation of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.If Juliet talked like that dame did no wonder she took poison.

  Then Claribel let down her back hair and started in to give us a madscene--and it was. Everybody in the room got mad.

  When peace was finally restored Mrs. Frothingham informed us that therest of the "paid" talent had disappointed her and she'd have to dependon the volunteers. Then she whispered to Miss Gladiola Hungerschnitz,whereupon that young lady giggled her way over to the piano and began toknock its teeth out.

  The way Gladiola went after one of Beethoven's sonatas and slapped itsears was pitiful.

  Gladiola learned to injure a piano at a conservatory of music. She cantake a Hungarian rhapsody and turn it into a goulash in about 32 bars.

  At the finish of the sonata we all applauded Gladiola just as loudly aswe could, in the hope that she would faint with surprise and stopplaying, but no such luck.

  She tied a couple of chords together and swung that piano like a pair ofIndian clubs.

  First she did "My Old Kentucky Home," with variations, until everybodywho had a home began to weep for fear it might get to be like herKentucky home.

  The variations were where she made a mistake and struck the right note.

  Then Gladiola moved up to the squeaky end of the piano and gave animitation of a Swiss music box.

  It sounded to me like a Swiss cheese.

  Presently Gladiola ran out of raw material and subsided, while we allapplauded her with our fingers crossed, and two very thoughtful ladiesbegan to talk fast to Gladiola so as to take her mind off the piano.

  This excitement was followed by another catastrophe named MinnehahaJones, who picked up a couple of soprano songs and screeched them at us.

  Minnehaha is one of those fearless singers who vocalize without asafety-valve. She always keeps her eyes closed so she can't tell justwhen her audience gets up and leaves the room.

  The next treat was a duet on the flute and trombone between ClarenceSmith and Lancelot Diffenberger, with a violin obligate on the side byHector Tompkins.

  Never before have I seen music so roughly handled.

  It looked like a walk-over for Clarence, but in the fifth round he blewa couple of green notes and Lancelot got the decision.

  Then, for a consolation prize, Hector was led out in the middle of theroom, where he assassinated Mascagni's _Cavalleria Rusticana_ sothoroughly that it will never be able to enter a fifty-cent _tabled'hote_ restaurant again.

  Almost before the audience had time to recover Peaches' sister, Jennie,was coaxed to sing Tosti's "Good Bye!"

  I'm very fond of sister Jennie, but I'm afraid if Mr. Tosti ever heardher sing his "Good Bye" he would say, "the same to you, and here's yourhat."

  Before Jennie married and moved West I remember she had a very prettymezzo-concertina voice, but she's been so long away helping Stub Wilsonto make Milwaukee famous that nowadays her top notes sound like a cuckooclock after it's been up all night.

  I suppose it's wrong for me to pull this about our own flesh and blood,but when a married woman with six fine children, one of them at Yale,walks sideways up to a piano and begins to squeak, "Good bye, summer!Good bye, summer!" just as if she were calling the dachshund in todinner, I think it's time she declined the nomination.

  Then Bud Hawley, after figuring it all out that there was no chance ofhis getting arrested, sat down on the piano stool and made a few sadstatements, which in their original state form the basis of a Scotchballad called "Loch Lomond."

  Bud's system of speaking the English language is to say with his voiceas much of a word as he can remember and then finish the rest of it withhis ha
nds.

  Imagine what Bud would do to a song with an oat-meal foundation like"Loch Lomond."

  When Bud barked out the first few bars, which say, "By yon bonnie bankand by yon bonnie brae," everybody within hearing would have cried withjoy if the piano had fallen over on him and flattened his equator.

  And when he reached the plot of the piece, where it says, "You take thehigh road and I'll take the low road," Uncle Peter took a drink, PhilMerton took the same, Stub took an oath, and I took a walk.

  And all the while Bud's wife sat there, with the glad and winning smileof a swordfish on her face, listening with a heart full of pride whileher crime-laden husband chased that helpless song all over the parlor,and finally left it unconscious under the sofa.

  At this point Hep Hardy got up and volunteered to tell some funnystories and this gave us all a good excuse to put on our overshoes andsay "Good night" to our hostess without offending anybody.

  Hep Hardy and his funny stories are always used to close the show.

  "John," said Peaches after we got home; "I want to give a _musicale_,may I?"

  "Certainly, old girl," I answered. "We'll give one in the nearest movingpicture theater. If we don't like the show all we have to do is to closeour eyes and thank our lucky stars there's nothing to listen to."

  "Oh! aren't you hateful!" she pouted.

  Maybe I am at that.