by Larry Karp
Chapter Twelve
Sedalia
Friday, July 28, 1899
When Brun got to the Maple Leaf Club for his morning lesson, he found Joplin in a brown study, alone at the piano, staring at papers on the music rack. No other students, no Mr. Weiss. Brun tiptoed up, but Joplin either noticed his student’s movements or sensed the boy behind him. He whipped around, then quickly pulled his watch. “You’re six minutes early.”
“Couldn’t wait any longer.” Brun pointed at the music. “Are you getting it to where you want it?”
“Not quite. Emancipation Day’s only a week away…” Joplin sighed, then folded the manuscript, laid it carefully on the floor next to the piano, and got up. “All right, sit down. Play me what I’ve taught you. ‘Maple Leaf,’ then ‘Original Rags,’ ‘Sunflower’ and ‘Swipesey.’ Play them as a medley.”
When the boy finished, he was covered in sweat. Joplin nodded. “Better.”
“But it’s still not like you play it.”
Joplin shook his head. “If you’d learned ragtime from me from the beginning, it would have been easier. Once you get into bad playing habits, you need to get rid of them before you can pick up good ones. Maybe we should give you something new…all right, here. This is a part of a tune I’m just starting to work on.”
Brun got off the piano bench. How many tunes did this man have in his head, all being worked on at once? As Joplin took his seat, the boy noticed a small piece of paper on the floor next to The Ragtime Dance manuscript; he bent to pick it up. It was a business card for The Maple Leaf Club, Sedalia, Missouri, 121 East Main Street, W.J. Williams, Prop. Joplin began to play. Brun flipped the card in his hand, and read, “The Good Time Boys will give a good time, for instance Master Scott Joplin, the Entertainer.” Below were a bunch of other names, but before Brun could read them, Joplin suddenly lifted his hands from the keyboard and said, “All right, then. Now, you play it. Just the way I did.”
Brun wanted to ask for another listen, but was scared at what Joplin might say. The boy palmed the card into his pocket, then sat at the keyboard, and asked, “Can you please give me a start?”
Joplin took up Brun’s hands, set his fingers on the keys. “Go on, now. I know you’ve never heard this tune before, and I want to hear how you do with it.”
Brun barely had heard it then, and he stumbled his way through, never mind showing proper feeling for the music. When he finished, he thought his teacher looked like someone who’d just taken a length of two-by-four to the head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Joplin,” he said, moving to the side as he talked. “Play it once more and let me watch closer. Please.”
Without taking his eyes off Brun, or saying a single word, Joplin sat back down and played the passage. “All right?”
Brun burned with shame and embarrassment. “Yes.” He moved his hands toward the keys, then began to play. This go-round, he got through the music nicely, and Joplin nodded approval. “Better. Your expression is more accurate. Maybe we need to concentrate on music you haven’t heard before.”
“What’s the name of this one?” Brun asked.
“No name. So far it’s just what you heard, some bits and pieces.”
“I like it. Is there any more of it you can play for me?”
Joplin sat and knocked out some fifteen seconds of music. There’s something about whatever he composes, Brun thought. Even bits and pieces sound like music nobody else could have written. “You’ve already got ‘Scott Joplin’s Original Rags,’” the boy said. “You could call this one ‘The Entertainer.’”
“‘The Entertainer’? Where did you get that from?”
Brun pulled the card back out of his pocket. Joplin raised his eyebrows. “Keeping up with you is a challenge—but yes, that’s what they call me here. All right, enough of that. Your lesson time is passing, and we need to do some exercises.”
Later, before Brun left, Joplin took out his rubber ball, squeezed it left-handed, then right. Brun quickly worked his ball out of his pocket and began to squeeze it in time with Joplin. “Good,” Joplin said. “Before you know it, your hands will have such strength and endurance, you won’t be able to stop them playing.”
***
Sarah Stark thought a walk around town might be a good diversion for Mrs. Fitzgerald, so after lunch she herded the strange woman and little Frankie down the stairs and over to Ohio. Saturday afternoon, the street was bustling, wagons rolling past like a parade. Every hitching post was taken. Horses in too-close quarters snorted and pawed the air, shook their manes and switched their tails against the fierce, persistent horseflies. The sidewalks were packed with shoppers, but they fell away to clear a path for Mrs. Fitzgerald as she marched, stone-faced, waving her black umbrella before her like a sword. Frankie couldn’t decide where to look first, and when he spotted the little popcorn wagon at the corner of Fourth Street, he jabbed a finger and commenced to jump up and down. Mrs. Stark asked Mrs. Fitzgerald’s permission, then bought the child a small bag of popcorn.
As the women and the little boy approached Boutell’s Saloon, a heavy blond man in a preposterous light-gray suit moved out from a small group of loafers. Mrs. Stark thought he smiled like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland, and though he tipped his straw boater and said, “Good afternoon, ladies,” his attention clearly centered on Frankie. “What a beautiful little boy,” the man boomed, then leaned into Frankie’s face. “What’s your name, little guy?”
Frankie hid his face in his mother’s skirts. The man laughed. “Bashful, eh?” He reached into his pants pocket, then held out his hand. “Bet you like horehound drops.”
When Mrs. Stark saw the expression on Mrs. Fitzgerald’s face, she spoke quickly. “Thank you, sir. My friend and her son are newly arrived in town, and I’m afraid the little man’s a bit shy.” She tugged on Mrs. Fitzgerald’s arm.
“You’re welcome, Mrs. Stark,” the man called after them. “Maybe after your friend and her boy get more comfortable, we can all become friends.” He rejoined the group of men he’d been talking to. Mrs. Stark looked over her shoulder. She’d never seen the man. How was it he knew her name?
***
At Boutell’s that evening, it occurred to Brun that if he played around with some of the practice exercises Scott Joplin had given him, they might just come across as ragtime tunes. Like what Blind Boone did, that southern rag medley. It took only a few minutes for the boy to really get it going, ragging those exercises for all they were worth. He’d been at it a good half-hour when who should glide up to the piano but Otis Saunders, a smile big as Everest painted on his face. “Well, hello there, Mr. Brun Campbell,” Saunders said. “Here I be, walkin’ past the door, just mindin’ my own business, and all of a sudden I say to myself, ‘Is that Scott Joplin playin’ piano at Boutell’s? Nah, nah…’” Silly idea, he pushed it away with his hand. “But then I say, ‘Sure do sound like Scott, I gotta go see for myself.’ An’ just looky what I find.”
Brun’s fingers didn’t slow. A piano player who couldn’t carry on a conversation while he performed didn’t hold his job for very long. “Thanks, Otis,” he said. “I appreciate the compliment, but I know I don’t really sound anything like Mr. Joplin. Maybe some day.”
“Oh, well, now, Brun—you know I was just ragging on you a little bit. But you want to remember something. Scott Joplin, he a mighty fine piano player, an’ he write music like he got an angel sittin’ on his shoulder, whispering notes in his ear. But he not the be-all and the end-all. Everybody who play ragtime got his own way, and there ain’t no two players with just the same touch. ’Course I knowed that wasn’t Scott Joplin in here, it was Brun Campbell. Just like recognizing your face. Now…”
Saunders pushed Brun to the left, stood next to him at the keyboard, and said, “You just keep right on playin’.” Then he swung into a lively accompaniment to Brun’s ragged-up syncopated exercise. The room went so quiet, Brun could hear from somewhere past the bar, “Godamighty—iz
zat a white man and a colored, playin’ on the same piano?” “No, you damn fool. Anybody can see they’re both white.”
When Brun and Saunders finished, note-perfect and dead-on with each other, people clapped and whistled. A few dropped coins into Brun’s hat on top of the piano. “See there, now,” Saunders said. “You play Brun and I play Otis, and it be like two people having a pleasant li’l talk. Ain’t that the way?”
“Try another one,” Brun said, and swung into the few lines of what he’d called “The Entertainer.” Saunders rested a hand on his arm. “Wait just a minute, now. Where you get that tune?”
Uh-oh. Did Saunders recognize the music? Better play safe. “That’s one of the exercises Mr. Joplin gave me, and I’ve been fooling around with it.”
“Do tell.” Saunders’ eyes widened. “So that ain’t no tune been published?”
“Just an exercise from Mr. Joplin.” Brun started to play “Harlem Rag,” but Saunders went right on talking. “Don’t you see what you got there, boy? You got yourself a brand-new ragtime tune. Put it down on paper, and next you know, you be seein’ it on the cover of a music sheet, an’ your name right underneath.” Saunders laughed at the expression on Brun’s face. “You lucky, boy, can’t you see that? You in the right place an’ at just the right time, what with there bein’ a man in town, lookin’ to buy up all the ragtime he can get a hand on. So…” Saunders cupped a hand to an ear, and leaned to the side. “Don’t I just hear Mr. Opportunity, a-knockin’ hard at Brun Campbell’s door? I think the boy be a fool, he don’t open up that door an’ let the man in.” Saunders made a show of looking at his watch, then grinned. “Got to go now—got a special appointment, if you catch my meaning.”
Which left Brun mightily distracted. For the next hour, the boy improvised on every exercise Scott Joplin had given him, played rings around every melody fragment he could dredge up from what he’d heard other players play in other places. Write them down? Well, why not? Wasn’t that what Boone did? But not to sell to Freitag. Stark and Son would need some good tunes for their catalog, wouldn’t they?
Arthur Marshall came in at ten o’clock, and Brun headed out, his pocket heavy with more than two dollars in change. Paltry compared to what he could make writing down music to publish. The boy was so busy running numbers through his head that as he came up on the alleyway next to Boutell’s, he nearly plowed directly into a woman. “Well, Mr. Campbell,” she said. “You ought to watch better where you’re going. And you might just say hello to a friend.”
Maisie McAllister, in summery cotton and lace, lit up the night with her smile. “Or maybe you’re mad at me?”
“No…no, ’course not,” Brun stammered. “Why should I be mad at you? I was just thinking about something.”
He looked around, but didn’t see Freitag or any other man nearby. Maisie pointed toward the swinging doors. “Mr. Freitag went inside for a beer. Didn’t you see him?”
Brun shook his head. “It was pretty crowded.”
“And so hot—and all the cigars. That’s why I decided to wait for him out here. But tell me, Mr. Campbell. What’s so very interesting that it’s got your mind to where you didn’t even notice me?”
By way of apology, Brun executed a little bow. “Miss McAllister, I am sorry for my behavior. Since I’ve come to town, I’ve had uncommon good luck, and I was just thinking about my future. That’s why I didn’t take proper notice of you.”
“Perhaps you should.”
That smile, those eyes… Even in the out-of-doors, there was no missing the fragrance of her scent. Other girls had given Brun that particular look, and what came afterward was always very pleasant. “Mr. Campbell, you know what?” Maisie’s eyelashes fluttered. “I’m tired of standing here. Why don’t you see me back to my house, and on the way, you can tell me what you’ve been thinking.” She slipped a hand into the crook of his arm.
Brun looked around, which brought a snicker from Maisie. “Don’t worry about Mr. Freitag. If he wants the company of a glass of beer more than mine, he can just enjoy it.” She gave a little tug at Brun’s elbow.
The idea of seeing Maisie home was more than agreeable to Brun, and the thought of Freitag coming out of Boutell’s, looking all around for the girl and not finding her, was icing on a very tasty cake. So, off they went down Ohio, past Fourth and Fifth. The streets grew darker, the sounds of night life further away. Brun told Maisie about his piano lessons with Scott Joplin, job with John Stark, lodgings with the Higdons. “It’s a swell start, but a man needs to strike while the iron’s hot. I think music publishing is going to be big, and I want to get in on it.”
They turned onto East Sixth. Moonlight gleamed off Maisie’s hair. Her wide eyes seemed to take in every word he said. “Are you thinking as a publisher? Or do you want to write music to publish?”
“Maybe both.” He told himself he’d be smart not to mention anything to do with John Stark. “But for now, anyway, I want to write the music. It shouldn’t be all that hard. Why, the tunes are right there—piano men play them every day, and the first to write a tune down is the legal owner. Not like it’s stealing.”
She squeezed his arm. “Flowers growing in a field are just there for the picking, aren’t they?”
“That’s the way I see it.” Then he began to hum “The Entertainer” fragment. Maisie picked right up. “That’s a catchy one.”
“Shouldn’t be all that hard to stretch it into a tune,” Brun said.
They stopped in front of a little yellow clapboard house between Washington and Harrison, its front yard filled with ivy, save for a narrow winding path to the front door. Maisie tugged at Brun’s arm. “Why don’t you see me inside, we can talk some more.” She looked at his face and laughed, a lovely musical sound. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. And I won’t tell your mother.”
Brun commenced to feel foolish and just a bit insulted. Maisie ran her fingers playfully through his hair. “Oh, come on, now. I just baked a cake this afternoon. We can sit in the living room, have cake and coffee, and you can tell me more about your plans. I’m interested. I really am.”
Brun waited in the living room while Maisie went into the kitchen. The room was neater than he’d expected, furniture definitely not bought on the cheap, a horsehair sofa, two overstuffed chairs with lace antimacassars on the arms and headrests, a floor lamp between the chairs, and a low wooden table in front of the sofa. Against the back wall sat a nice Bush and Gerts upright piano. Brun walked over and commenced to play.
When Maisie came in, carrying a tray with a chocolate cake and a coffee pot, he was midway through “Good Old Wagon.” Maisie set the tray on a little table, clasped her hands in front of her chest, and sang along with the last lines of the tune. “Bye-bye my honey, if you call it gone, O Babe. Bye-bye my honey, if you call it gone. You’ve been a good ol’ wagon, but you done broke down.”
Brun was surprised no end. “I didn’t think you’d know that.”
“Huh!” Maisie pretended to be affronted. “Well, of course I know it. Why shouldn’t I?” She set to slicing cake and pouring coffee. Brun moved over to sit on the sofa. Maisie set two china coffee cups and two plates with cake onto the table, then positioned herself next to the boy. She brushed hair back behind her ear. “Brun…is it all right for me to call you Brun?”
“Sure. I don’t mind.”
Big smile. “Good. Then we’re friends. You can call me Maisie.”
Brun couldn’t bear to look at his slice of cake an instant longer, picked up his fork, took a large bite. Maisie turned a pout on him. “Didn’t you think I sang that song all right?”
“Oh, now, sure I did,” he said through a mouthful of chocolate. “I mean, you sang it more than just all right. You knew all the words right on, and you’ve got a very nice voice.”
She grabbed his hand like she hoped to squeeze more compliments out of it. “You really think so? Do you mean that?”
“I wouldn’t have sai
d it otherwise.”
She let go of him and leaned back against the sofa cushion. “My mama and dad got me music lessons so I could sing and play, first for them, then for my husband, like a proper girl is supposed to do. But what I really wanted was to go on the stage, and my parents wouldn’t ever have let me do that. When I turned eighteen, they wanted me to marry Hugh Menton, one of those nice young men in Daddy’s bank, so I…I ran away. With a circus that was in the next town.”
Now that’s a capper, Brun thought. Running away to Sedalia was small pumpkins next to running away with a circus. Maybe that explained some things, like how much face powder and perfume Maisie used. And why she lived on her own, a young woman, supporting herself by giving piano lessons.
“I wanted to become a singing performer, but they needed an aerialist-girl, so I agreed to do that, at least at first. They taught me the tricks, and oh, I’ll admit, it was fun for a while. But I wanted to sing. I worked out a routine with the clowns, something I thought I might be able to develop into a vaudeville act, but the manager just kept putting me off, ‘Maybe soon, maybe soon.’ I was with them more than two years, and then one night when we were in Kansas City, I went to the theater to see Ben Harney—”
“So, that’s how you knew…he’s who wrote ‘Good Old Wagon.’”
“Well, of course. He played all his songs, and I don’t think there’s been a day since that I haven’t thought about it. He did a blackface routine with his wife, he played piano, and she sang and danced. They did ‘Wagon,’ and ‘Mr. Johnson, Turn Me Loose,’ and ‘I Love One Sweet Black Man’…oh, it was wonderful. I wanted to be right up there with them. Well, I knew by that time I was never going to get anywhere with the circus, so next day, I left. I couldn’t go home—my parents would’ve thrown me right back out, ruined as I was.” She caught Brun looking from his empty plate to the cake, smiled, cut another piece and slid it onto his plate. “At first I thought to stay in Kansas City and give piano lessons, but I couldn’t find any kind of decent living quarters with a piano. Then I heard about Sedalia, all the music here, so I decided to give it a try. Right off, I found this little house, and your Mr. Stark was kind enough to give me time payments on this second-hand piano out of one of the Broadway mansions, where an old woman had died and her children were cleaning out. I save every penny I can, and one day I’ll have enough of a stake so I can try a vaudeville circuit. But meanwhile, I keep my eyes open for possibilities—”
