Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush

by Susanna Moodie

  “I am sorry,” said I, “to hear such a poor account of the instrument. It is impossible to sing well to a bad piano –”

  “Phoo, phoo, man! there’s nobody here that ever he’rd a better. Bad or good, it’s the only one in the village. I play on this pee-a-ne a leetle myself, and that ought to be some encouragement to you. I am goin’ to do a considerable business in the singing line here. I have stirred up all the leetle girls and boys in the place, and set them whistling an’ playing on the Jew’s harp. Then I goes to the old ‘uns, and says to them, what genuses for music these young ‘uns be! it is your duty to improve a talent that providence has bestowed on your children. I puts on a long face, like a parson, when I talks of providence and the like o’that, and you don’t know how amazingly it takes with the old folks. They think that providence is allers on the look out to do them some good turn. –

  “What do you charge, Mr. Browne?’ says they, instanter.

  “Oh, a mere trifle, say I, instanter. Jist half-a-dollar a quarter – part in cash, part in produce.

  “‘‘Tis cheap,’ says they agin.

  “Tew little, says I, by half.

  “‘Well, the children shall go,’ says the old man. ‘Missus, you see to it.’

  “The children like to hear themselves called genuses, and they go into it like smoke. When I am tuning my voice at my lodgings in the evening, just by way of recreation, the leetle boys all gets round my winder to listen to my singing. They are so fond of it I can’t get them away. They make such a confounded noise, in trying to imitate my splendid style. But I’ll leave you to judge of that for yourself. ‘S’pose you’ll be up with me to the singing-school, and then you will hear what I can do.”

  “I shall be most happy to attend you.”

  “You see, Mr. Thing-a-my, this is my first lesson, and you must make all allowances, if there should be any trouble, or that all should not go right. You see one seldom gets the hang of it the first night, no how. I have been farming most of my life, but I quits that about five weeks ago, and have been studying hard for my profession ever since. I have got a large school here, another at A—, and another at L—; and before the winter is over, I shall be qualified to teach at W—. I play the big bass fiddle and the violin right off, and –”

  Here a little boy came running up to say that his father’s sheep had got out of the yard, and had gone down to Deacon S—; and, said he, “The folks have sent for you, Mister Browne, to cum and turn ‘em out.”

  “A merciful intervention of providence,” thought I, who was already heartily weary of my new acquaintance, and began to be afraid that I never should get rid of him. To tell the truth, I was so tired of looking up at him, that I felt that I could not converse much longer with him without endangering the elasticity of my neck, and he would have been affronted if I had asked him to walk in and sit down.

  He was not very well pleased with Deacon S—’s message.

  “That comes of borrowing, mister. If I had not asked the loan of the pee-a-ne, they never would have sent for me to look arter their darned sheep. I must go, however. I hope you’ll be able to keep yourself alive in my absence. I have got to string up the old fiddle for to-night. The singing-school is about a mile from this. I will come down with my old mare arter you, when its just time to be a-goin.’ So good-bye.”

  Away he strode at the rate of six miles an hour; his long legs accomplishing at one step what would have taken a man of my dimensions three to compass. I then went into the hotel to order dinner for my friends, as he had allowed me no opportunity to do so. The conceited fellow had kept me standing a foot deep in snow for the last hour, while listening to his intolerably dull conversation. My disgust and disappointment afforded great amusement to my friends; but in spite of all my entreaties, they could not be induced to leave their punch and a warm fire to accompany me in my pilgrimage to the singing-school.

  We took dinner at four o’clock, and the cloth was scarcely drawn, when my musical friend made his appearance with the old mare, to take me along to the school.

  Our turn-out was everything but prepossessing. A large unwieldy cutter of home manufacture, the boards of which it was composed unplained and unpainted, with rope harness, and an undressed bull’s hide by way of buffalo’s, formed our equipage. But no description that I could give you would do justice to the old mare. A sorry beast she was – thick legged, rough coated, and of a dirty yellow-white. Her eyes, over one of which a film was spread, were dull as the eyes of a stale fish, and her temples so hollow, that she looked as if she had been worn out by dragging the last two generations to their graves. I was ashamed of adding one more to the many burdens she must have borne in her day, and I almost wished that she had realized in her own person the well-known verse in the Scotch song –

  “The auld man’s mare’s dead,

  A mile ayont Dundee,”

  before I ever had set my eyes upon her.

  “Can she carry us?” said I, pausing irresolutely, with my foot on the rough heavy runner of the cutter.

  “I guess she can,” quoth he. “She will skim like a bird over the snow; so get into the sleigh, and we will go straight off to the singing-school.”

  It was intensely cold. I drew the collar of my great coat over my ears, and wrapped my half of the bull’s hide well round my feet, and we started. The old mare went better than could have been expected from such a skeleton of a beast. To be sure, she had no weight of flesh to encumber her motions, and we were getting on pretty well, when the music master drove too near a stump, which suddenly upset us both, and tumbled him head foremost into a bank of snow. I fortunately rolled out a-top of him, and soon extricated myself from the difficulty; but I found it no easy matter to drag my ponderous companion from beneath the snow, and the old bull’s hide in which he was completely enveloped.

  The old mare stood perfectly still, gazing with her one eye intently on the mischief she had done, as if she never had been guilty of such a breach of manners before. After shaking the snow from our garments, and getting all right for a second start, my companion exclaimed in an agonized tone –

  “My fiddle! Where, where is my fiddle? I can do nothing without my fiddle.”

  We immediately went in search of it; but we did not succeed in finding it for some time. I had given it up in despair, and, half-frozen with cold, was stepping into the cutter to take the benefit of the old bull’s hide, when, fortunately for the music-master, one of the strings of the lost instrument snapped with the cold. We followed the direction of the sound, and soon beheld the poor fiddle sticking in a snowbank, and concealed by a projecting stump. The instrument had sustained no other injury than the loss of three of the strings.

  “Well, arn’t that too bad?” says he. “I have no more catgut without sending to W—. That’s done for, at least for to-night.”

  “It’s very cold,” I cried, impatiently, seeing that he was in no hurry to move on. “Do let us be going. You can examine your instrument better in the house than standing up to your knees in the snow.”

  “I was born in the Backwoods,” say he; “I don’t feel the cold.” Then jumping into the cutter, he gave me the fiddle to take care of, and pointing with the right finger of his catskin gloves to a solitary house on the top of a bleak hill, nearly a mile a-head, he said, –“That white building is the place where the school is held.”

  We soon reached the spot. “This is the old Methodist church, mister, and a capital place for the voice. There is no furniture or hangings to interrupt the sound. Go right in, while I hitch the mare; I will be arter you in a brace of shakes.”

  I soon found myself in the body of the old dilapidated church, and subjected to the stare of a number of very unmusical-looking girls and boys, who, certainly from their appearance, would never have led you to suppose that they ever could belong to a Philharmonic society. Presently, Mr. Browne made his début.

  Assuming an air of great importance as he approached his pupils, he said –“Ladies and g
entlemen, allow me to introduce to your notice Mr. H—, the celebrated vocalist. He has cum all the way from New York on purpose to hear you sing.”

  The boys grinned at me and twirled their thumbs, the girls nudged one another’s elbows and giggled, while their eloquent teacher continued –

  “I don’t know as how we shall be able to do much to-night; we upset, and that spilt my fiddle into the snow. You see,” – holding it up –“it’s right full of it, and that busted the strings. A dropsical fiddle is no good, no how. Jist look at the water dripping out of her.”

  Again the boys laughed, and the girls giggled. Said he –“Hold on, don’t laugh; it’s no laughing matter, as you’ll find.”

  After a long pause, in which the youngsters tried their best to look grave, he went on –

  “Now all of you, girls and boys, give your attention to my instructions this evening. I’m goin’ to introduce a new style, for your special benefit, called the Pest-a-lazy (Pestalozzi) system, now all the fashion. If you are all ready, produce your books. Hold them up. One – two – three! Three books for forty pupils? That will never do! We can’t sing to-night; well, never mind. You see that black board; I will give you a lesson to-night upon that. Who’s got a piece of chalk?”

  A negative shake of the head from all. To me “Chalk’s scarce in these diggings.” To the boys: “What, nobody got a piece of chalk? That’s unlucky; a piece of charcoal out of the stove will do as well.”

  “No ‘ar won’t,” roared out a boy with a very ragged coat. “They be both the same colour.”

  “True, Jenkins, for you; go out and get a lump of snow. Its darnation strange if I can’t fix it somehow.”

  “Now,” thought I, “what is this clever fellow going to do?”

  The boys winked at each other, and a murmur of suppressed laughter ran through the old church. Jenkins ran out, and soon returned with a lump of snow.

  Mr. Browne took a small piece, and squeezing it tight, stuck it upon the board. “Now, boys, that is Do, and that is Re, and that is Do again, and that is Mi, this Do, and that Fa; and that, boys, is a part of what we call a scale.” Then turning to a tall, thin, shabby-looking man, very much out at the elbows, whom I had not seen before, he said –“Mr. Smith, how is your base viol? Hav’nt you got it tuned up yet?”

  “Well, squire, I guess it’s complete.”

  “Hold on; let me see,” and taking a tuning-fork from his pocket, and giving it a sharp thump upon the stove, he cried out in a still louder key –”Now, that’s A; jist tune up to A.”

  After Mr. Smith had succeeded in tuning his instrument, the teacher proceeded with his lucid explanations: –“Now, boys, start fair; give a grand chord. What sort of a noise do you call that? (giving a luckless boy a thump over the head with his fiddle-stick). You bray through your nose like a jackass. I tell you to quit; I don’t want discord.” The boy slunk out of the class, and stood blubbering behind the door.

  “Tune up again, young shavers! Sing the notes as I have made them on the board, – Do, re-do, mi, do-fa. Now, when I count four commence. One – two – three – four. Sing! Hold on! – hold on! Don’t you see that all the notes are running off, and you can’t sing running notes yet.”

  Here he was interrupted by the noise of some one forcing their way into the church, in a very strange and unceremonious manner, and

  “The chorister’s song, that late was so strong,

  Grew a quaver of consternation.”

  The door burst open, and a ghastly head was protruded through the aperture. “A ghost! – a ghost! “ shrieked out all the children in a breath; and jumping over the forms, they huddled around the stove, upsetting the solitary tallow candle, the desk, and the bass viol, in their flight. One lad sprang right upon the unfortunate instrument, which broke to pieces with a terrible crash. We were now left in the dark. The girls screamed, and clung round me for protection, while the ghastly apparition continued to stare upon us through the gloom, with its large, hollow eyes. I must confess that I felt rather queer; but I wisely kept my fears to myself, while I got as far from the door as I possibly could. Just as our terror had reached a climax, the grizzly phantom uttered a low, whining neigh.

  “It’s the old mare! I’ll be darned if it isn’t!” cried one of the older boys, at the top of his voice. This restored confidence to the rest; and one rather bolder than his comrades at length ventured to relight the fallen candle at the stove, and holding it up, displayed to our view the old white mare, standing in the doorway. The poor beast had forced her way into the porch to protect herself from the cold; and she looked at her master, as much as to say, “I have a standing account against you.” No doubt she would have been highly tickled, could she have known that her sudden intrusion had been the means of shortening her term of probation by at least half an hour, and of bringing the singing-school to a close. She had been the innocent cause of disabling both the musical instruments, and Mr. Browne could not raise a correct note without them. Turning to his pupils, with a very rueful countenance, and speaking in a very unmusical voice, but very expressive withal, he said –”Chore (meaning choir), you are dismissed. But, hold on! – don’t be in such a darnation hurry to be off. I was a-going to tell you, this ere gentleman, Mr. H—(my name, for a wonder, popping into his head at that minute) is to give a con-sort tomorrow night. It was to have been tonight; but he changed his mind, that he might have the pleasure of hearing you. I shall assist Mr. H—in the singing department; so you must all be sure to cum. Tickets for boys over ten years, twenty-five cents; under ten, twelve and a half cents. So you leetle chaps will know what to do. The next time the school meets will be when the fiddles are fixed. Now scamper.” The children were not long in obeying the order. In the twinkling of an eye they were off, and we heard them shouting and skylarking in the lane.

  “Cum, Mr. H —,” said the music-master, buttoning his great-coat up to his chin, “let us be a-goin.’”

  On reaching the spot where we had left the cutter, to our great disappointment, we found only one-half of it remaining; the other half, broken to pieces, strewed the ground. Mr. Browne detained me for another half-hour, in gathering together the fragments. “Now you, Mr. Smith, you take care of the crippled fiddles, while I take care of the bag of oats. The old mare has been trying to hook them out of the cutter, which has been the cause of all the trouble. You, Mr. H—, mount up on the old jade, and take along the bull’s hide, and we will follow on foot.”

  “Yes,” said I, “and glad of the chance, for I am cold and tired.”

  Not knowing a step of the way, I let Mr. Browne and his companion go a-head; and making a sort of packsaddle of the old hide, I curled myself up on the back of the old mare, and left her to her own pace, which, however, was a pretty round trot, until we reached the outskirts of the town, where, dismounting, I thanked my companions, very insincerely I’m afraid, for my evening’s amusement, and joined my friends at the hotel, who were never tired of hearing me recount my adventures at the singing-school.

  I had been obliged to postpone my own concert until the next evening, for I found the borrowed piano such a poor one, and so miserably out of tune, that it took me several hours rendering it at all fit for service. Before I had concluded my task, I was favoured with the company of Mr. Browne, who stuck to me closer than a brother, never allowing me out of his sight for a moment. This persevering attention, so little in unison with my feelings, caused me the most insufferable annoyance. A thousand times I was on the point of dismissing him very unceremoniously, by informing him that I thought him a most conceited, impertinent puppy; but for the sake of my friend Roberts, who was in some way related to the fellow, I contrived to master my anger. About four o’clock he jumped up from the table, at which he had been lounging and sipping hot punch at my expense for the last hour, exclaiming –

  “I guess it’s time for me to see the pee-a-ne carried up to the con-sort room.”

  “It’s all ready,” said I. “Perhaps, Mr. Browne, y
ou will oblige me by singing a song before the company arrives, that I may judge how far your style and mine will agree;” for I began to have some horrible misgivings on the subject. “If you will step up stairs, I will accompany you on the piano. I had no opportunity of hearing you sing last night.”

  “No, no,” said he, with a conceited laugh; “I mean to astonish you by and by. I’m not one of your common amateurs, no how. I shall produce quite a sensation upon your audience.”

  So saying, he darted through the door, and left me to finish my arrangements for the night.

  The hour appointed for the concert at length arrived. It was a clear, frosty night, the moon shining as bright as day. A great number of persons were collected about the doors of the hotel, and I had every reason to expect a full house. I was giving some directions to my door-keeper, when I heard a double sleigh approaching at an uncommon rate; and looking up the road, I saw an old-fashioned, high-backed vehicle, drawn by two shabby-looking horses, coming towards the hotel at full gallop. The passengers evidently thought that they were too late, and were making up for lost time.

  The driver was an old farmer, and dressed in the cloth of the country, with a large capote of the same material drawn over his head and weather-beaten face, which left his sharp black eyes, red nose, and wide mouth alone visible. He flourished in his hand a large whip of raw hide, which ever and anon descended upon the backs of his rawboned cattle like the strokes of a flail.