The Ragtime Kid

by Larry Karp

  Higdon’s grin went wry. “Well, touché, Brun, and fair enough. I play piano myself, though with far more enthusiasm than skill. But I do love music. I get to most of the shows at Wood’s Opera House, and the dances Saturday nights in the hall at Second and Ohio, above the St. Louis Clothing Store. You might enjoy those yourself. Scott Joplin provides the music—that’s where I got to know him. The fact that he’s willing to have you as a piano student means a lot. And Mr. Stark told me that as well as he could tell in a day, he was favorably impressed with your abilities and thought you were of sound character. If both Scott Joplin and John Stark are willing to take a chance on you, so will I.”

  “Well, Mr. Higdon, I sure am grateful for that.”

  Higdon pulled a gold pocket watch from behind his vest, flipped it open, frowned. “I think we’d better be heading home. My sister gets annoyed when I’m late for dinner. You can pick up your things at the Y later, if that’s all right.”

  More than all right with Brun, who’d had nothing to eat since his pancake breakfast. He kept time with Higdon down Ohio, then west onto Sixth, and along to a two-story white frame house, recently painted, with a wide wraparound porch and well-tended flower gardens in front. Higdon pointed. “That’s it. Will it do, do you think?”

  “It looks more than ample, Mr. Higdon.”

  Higdon laughed. “Good. I hoped you wouldn’t be disappointed. Come on inside and meet the ladies. They’re expecting you.”

  They walked under a bower so thick with morning glories Brun couldn’t see but a bit of the trellis, then up a short path, onto the porch, and inside. From somewhere out back, Brun heard a pretty two-part soprano harmony on “Love’s Old Sweet Song.” Higdon called a hello, and like they’d been waiting for the summons, the music stopped mid-phrase and two young women hustled through the doorway. The lawyer kissed the older on the cheek, then the younger, and then made introductions. “Mr. Brun Campbell, my sister Belle Higdon and my niece Luella Sheldon. Louie.”

  “Miss Higdon, Miss Sheldon, I’m pleased to meet you.” Unfortunately, Brun’s stomach picked that moment to make a loud and rude sound. Miss Higdon bit on her lip but couldn’t keep from smiling. Miss Sheldon giggled.

  Least I’ve got on my new suit, Brun thought, then said, “I do beg your pardon, but it smells so good in here, I couldn’t help myself. We ate pretty plain back home, and except maybe on Christmas, my ma never got the house smelling anything like this.”

  Miss Belle smiled again. “Well, then, I suspect we’d do well to sit ourselves down. We can get acquainted over dinner.”

  Brun warned himself to watch his manners and not eat to excess, but as to the latter consideration, he found he had no worries. The Higdons were big people, Miss Belle being a good couple of inches taller than Brun, while Miss Luella, at thirteen, looked directly into Brun’s eyes. Considerably often, in fact, he couldn’t help but notice, and he found himself thinking she was regarding him in much the way he had regarded Miss McAllister at the music store, though for his part, he felt a great deal more interest in the roast chicken, dumplings, garden vegetables and pie. Not that Miss Luella was ugly, just she was at that funny point between being a girl and a woman, all gawky and sharp angles, not much yet in the way of soft curves. Her face was long, with big brown eyes and thin lips, and she had a nice mane of chestnut hair, tied back in a blue ribbon. Miss Belle was more womanly, but like her brother, she sported an impressive pair of jughandle ears, which she tried to hide under her long brown hair. All said, neither Higdon female came off too well by comparison to Miss McAllister.

  Along with their big ears, the Higdons seemed to have a family trait for hospitality. They asked all about Brun, and he told them what he’d told everyone else, where he’d come from and why he was in town. In turn, they told him about themselves. When Higdon had come to Sedalia the year before to read law with Mr. Hastain, Miss Belle came along to keep house for him, at least until she married a Mr. Campbell (no relation, so far as Brun could say) from St. Louis. Mr. Higdon himself had a fiancee, a Miss Selover, who lived right there in Sedalia. Miss Luella was Mr. Higdon’s and Miss Belle’s niece, and was staying with them for the summer.

  After they made a peach pie and a pot of coffee disappear, Higdon offered to help clear the dishes. Brun jumped to his feet, but Miss Belle told the men they’d only be in the way, and shooed them off to the back porch, a nice, screened refuge from summer bugs, with comfortable wicker chairs and a table in the middle. Higdon lit a pipe, took a few puffs, and sat. Brun followed suit, then thanked Higdon for the fine dinner. “Do you eat like that every night?” the boy asked.

  Which sent Higdon into a full-fledged laughing fit. When he finally got himself in hand, he said yes, theirs was a family of big-boned farmers, and ample provisions at the dinner table was part of the way they lived. “The farm’s over near Clifton City; that’s where I grew up. Belle, too, of course…” Higdon’s face went serious and, for the first time Brun had seen, sad. “And Luella—that’s to say, my sister, Luella, this Luella’s mother. She died in childbirth, back in ’88, when Little Louie was just two. Her father’s a good enough man, but my sister’s death affected him badly, and the fact is, he’s not much of a parent.”

  Brun thought that might be Higdon’s polite way of saying that Miss Luella’s father had been trying those eleven years to replace his wife with a bottle of whiskey.

  “So we do all we can to make Louie feel like one of us. She’s spending the summer here, and frankly, Brun, that’s one reason I’m glad to have you board with us. Louie’s a shy girl, doesn’t make friends easily. The Fourth of July, while every other boy and girl her age was having a time of it, she just sat on the porch here, doing needlework or reading her Bible. As much attention as Belle and I give her, I think it will be good for her to have someone near her age right here in the house. And I would take it as a personal favor if you can find time to escort her to some events—say, a concert in the park, a show at the Opera House. I’ll be glad to bear the expense, though of course you needn’t tell her that.”

  Brun thanked Higdon and said he’d be more than happy to try to make Miss Luella’s summer more enjoyable. “But truth, Mr. Higdon, most of the girls back home who read Bibles when no one was making them do it would never go to a show or a dance. They thought music and dancing were sinful.”

  Higdon shook his head. “Preachers can be pretty sharp at spotting a lonely girl and putting a Bible into her hands. I suspect if Louie got out more and did some of the things young people do, the Bible might not look all that interesting. But I hope I’m not offending you, Brun.”

  “No, sir, not at all. I’ll take a sheet of lively music anytime in preference to a Bible.”

  Higdon puffed a mouthful of smoke, then grinned. “Well, then, I guess we’re in full agreement, though you are more fortunate than I.” He held up a finger, teacher-like. “Sentimentally, I am disposed to harmony, but organically I am incapable of a tune.’ That was said by Charles Lamb, and it applies at least as well to me. But I won’t complain. Practice of the law is stimulating and provides me a good living, and my evenings are free to savor the musical pleasures. Not many men get to enjoy the compatible companionship of a practical wife and a lively mistress.”

  Brun would’ve bet a gold eagle that Higdon could talk a lion into a dentist’s chair. The man’s wide-set brown eyes always seemed to be asking questions, his friendly manner invited confidence. He knocked his pipe with the palm of his hand, then looked at Brun over the bowl. “If you smoke, feel free,” Higdon said. “Just not in the house. Belle has an asthmatic condition, and smoke bothers her lungs.”

  Brun thanked him, took out his little pouch of tobacco and papers, rolled a cigarette, and leaned forward to take the flame from the lucifer in Mr. Higdon’s hand. “You’re an enterprising fellow,” Higdon said, as Brun blew two streams of smoke out his nostrils. “Only two days in town, and you have a job, a piano teacher, and a place to lodge and prac
tice your music.”

  Brun grinned, and through the smoke cloud said, “I never did like to cool my heels.”

  “Then you should do well here. It’s a young city, not a lot of history to get in the way of a young man with drive. You can make it more on your own merits than on who your family happens to be. But keep in mind, every coin’s got two sides. Sedalia’s a wide-open town, and things can get unpleasant at times, particularly around Main Street at night. You’re bright, you’re sharp, you’re a real go-getter, but you need to know when to keep your mouth muzzled. Get careless in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong person, you may find yourself more trouble than you can handle. In Arkansas City, you at least had the advantage of familiarity. I hope you’ll be judicious here.”

  “Thank you,” said Brun. “I’ll be sure to take proper care.”

  Higdon smiled. “I hope so.” He extended his hand. “You have the freedom of my house, and welcome. Now, would you like me to come along and help you get your things from the Y?”

  “No need, sir. There’s not anywhere near that much. I’ll just run on over, shouldn’t take me long at all.”

  ***

  A few minutes before eleven next morning, Brun whipped up the creaky wooden stairs to the Maple Leaf Club, two at a pace. Arthur Marshall sat on the piano bench, Scott Joplin to his left, and the round German, Professor Weiss, to his right. It looked to Brun like Weiss and Joplin were both talking at once, and Marshall couldn’t figure which way to turn. As the floor creaked under Brun’s step, Joplin glanced over his shoulder, then nudged Marshall. “Time’s up, Arthur, Mr. Campbell is here. Take your papers, come back this afternoon. We’ll have to work on that passage.”

  Marshall gathered up manuscript pages from the piano rack, nodded in Brun’s direction, then started toward the door. “Don’t worry, now,” Joplin called after him. “You’re doing fine. Writing a good classical rag is no easy thing.” Then, without so much as a hello or a how do you do, Joplin pointed at the piano stool. “Let me hear how you play ‘Maple Leaf’ today.”

  Brun thought he understood. It wasn’t that Joplin was unfriendly, or had no manners, just that his mind was so full of music, there wasn’t room left over for some of the usual things most people carry around with them. The boy said hello to Professor Weiss, then plunked himself onto the bench, still warm from Marshall’s behind, and started to play. As he went along, he got that feeling of having something smack on, right as rain, and just for sport threw in a little run up and down the keys. But before he’d finished, Joplin had his right wrist in a painful grip. “Where did you get that from?”

  Brun forced himself to look his teacher in the eye. “I just thought—”

  “Was it in the score?”

  The score? Like a symphony? “No, sir. But when I hear people play ragtime, they usually put in a passage here or there that they think will go well. Back home, I could tell who was playing before I even went inside.”

  Joplin drew in a deep breath, then slowly blew it out. “All right. Now, listen. My ragtime is different from the ragtime you hear in hotels and saloons and parlors. Those tunes develop—usually start from a melody that’s been around forever, then as people play it, they add a little of this, a little of that. Like the songs minstrels sang in Europe, no two singers the same, and the song as it was sung in 1700 was not even recognizable in 1800. But my music is composed. It is high-class music, no different from a song by Schubert, a concerto by Mozart, or a Beethoven symphony. You know the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, don’t you?”

  Brun nodded.

  “Would you put a run in between all those Ba-ba-ba-boms?”

  “No.”

  “Then, kindly do not put any into my tunes. I don’t consider a piece of music finished until I can’t see how it could be improved by adding or changing a single note. You will play it as it is written. Now, go ahead. Start from the beginning of the second A-section. Up to there, you were doing well.”

  Brun felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. He turned, saw Julius Weiss smiling down on him. “Don’t worry, Brunnie. This is part of learning. You will do fine.”

  As Brun played on, Joplin listened and watched with fierce concentration. “Good,” he said. “You’ve got the tempo right. Go on, now. Play that tune.”

  When the boy finished, Joplin sat beside him. Though the teacher’s eyes were gentle, something about the way he looked made Brun uneasy. “You know the notes,” Joplin said. “But before you can play a classical rag properly, you must feel it, and that you are not yet doing. Let me show you.” Joplin swung into a hustling performance of “Maple Leaf.” After about ten bars, he looked around at Brun. “Hear that? It might be one of those player-piano rolls, just pump with your feet and there’s your tune, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Now, listen to this.” Again, Joplin played the opening bars of “Maple Leaf,” slower now, but every bit as mechanical, and all the while watching Brun’s face. “You see? Simply slowing the tempo is not the answer. Unless you can actually feel the music, your performance will be superficial. When you play classical ragtime, try thinking of a bright sunny day, just a perfect day. But somewhere, far in the back of your mind, you know that sooner or later, the lovely day will have to end. All right? Listen to this.”

  Music filled the room, hung in the air like a puff of breeze, scent of fresh-mowed grass. Brun stopped breathing. Every now and again, a cloud seemed to slide over the sun, but not for long. The driving bass, beautifully melodic in its own right, played counterpoint here and there with one or another voice in the syncopated treble. Every hair on Brun’s body stood at attention. Why didn’t anything like this happen the day before, when Joplin played the very same music at Stark’s? The boy felt lightheaded, then suddenly reached past Joplin to strike the keyboard, right over his teacher’s fingers. At the crash of the chord, Joplin stopped playing and cocked his head to look at Brun out of the corners of his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Brun said. “I couldn’t hold back.”

  Joplin came as close to a smile as Brun had yet seen. “No call to be sorry,” Joplin said softly. “Maybe you’re just a real ragtime kid.” The corners of his mouth twitched. “Mr. Brun Campbell, The Ragtime Kid.”

  Brun’s head couldn’t have swollen up more if Queen Victoria had called him to London, touched a sword to his shoulder and made him a knight.

  “Try it again,” Joplin said. “From the beginning.”

  Brun had just about gotten into the first go on the D strain when Joplin said, “All right, now. Hold up a minute.” The boy sat, fingers suspended over the keyboard. “That’s better,” Joplin said. “But listen to me play that same passage.”

  Brun didn’t have to listen long or hard to hear the difference. The music he’d played was a thick slice of his Ma’s pound cake, certainly not anything to turn down. But Joplin made the music into a charlotte russe. Brun stared at the black hands, gliding gently from key to key, then looked at Joplin’s face. As always, no clue there. The man could’ve been reading a book, overhearing a conversation, sweeping a floor. “But…how…?” Brun stammered.

  “You hear it?”

  “Sure. But I don’t have any idea how you’re doing it. What makes it sound like that?”

  “I can’t say. I can only show you. You can’t translate a properly written ragtime piece into words. Take Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony—here, listen.” Joplin began to play again, and if Brun hadn’t been watching, he’d have sworn this was a different pianist. “You see,” Joplin murmured over the music, “Beethoven himself said that this music should not be thought of as a painting of country scenes, but as an expression of feeling.”

  Without warning or even a musical bridge, Joplin swung into more violent music, fingers no longer dancing, but pressing firmly at the keys. “Wagner,” he shouted. “From his opera, Gotterdammerung. You don’t see anything in particular when you hear this, do you? But what do you feel?”

  Then in a tri
ce Joplin was back to “Maple Leaf Rag.” Like hearing a man speak a sentence flawlessly in one language, then switch to another tongue, and then go right off into a third. “Where did you learn to play Wagner and Beethoven?” Brun asked.

  Something flashed in Joplin’s eyes. “You think a colored man can’t learn European music?”

  “Mr. Joplin, please don’t take offense—that’s not what I meant. I’ve listened to lots of piano players, white men and colored, and you are the first I’ve ever heard who played this kind of music and ragtime, both.”

  Joplin’s face relaxed. He looked past Brun to Weiss, who smiled and said, “Tell him, Scott.”

  Joplin turned sidewise, leaned an elbow on the keyboard, and looked Brun square in the eyes. “I apologize for taking offense where none was intended. I should have known better. It bothers me that so many people, Negroes as well as whites, think that the colored have something in their bones or their blood that permits them to play, compose, and appreciate ragtime, but leaves them deaf to European music. When I play Beethoven, I feel as if he and I are not only personally acquainted, we are on the very best terms of friendship.”

  He glanced again at Weiss. It’s not coming easy for him, Brun thought.

  “My mother was a…laundress. She worked for the Rodgers family in Texarkana, where I grew up. Professor Weiss lived in their house and taught their children. He heard people in town talk about me, how I was just a small boy who’d never had lessons, but how well I could play piano. He got me to play for him, and told my parents I had talent which should be encouraged, and that he would give me lessons free of charge. Then when Colonel Rodgers bought a new piano for his children, Mr. Weiss arranged for my father to chop wood to pay for the Rodgers’ old piano, so I could practice at home. It’s because of Mr. Weiss that I know classical music and have some familiarity with opera. He taught me Beethoven and Wagner. And he also arranged for me to listen when he tutored the Rodgers children in mathematics, science and history.”