THERE had been a family council in which my relatives had all sat around, gravely, and talked about me and my conduct. It was a painful affair. They had mentioned every bad thing which I had done in the course of a whole week, some of which I had not thought they knew about, and then in the middle of it all grandmother Harcourt had made an announcement.
"Rhoda"s behavior grows worse and worse," she had advanced, severely.
"And as for her manners, she"s a regular Hottentot!"
"Hottentot, eh?" granddad Lawrence repeated, whimsically.
He had me upon his knee, and as he spoke he turned my face toward his, and regarded it with much apparent interest. I gazed back at him wistfully. He was company, and it was very hard that company should hear me called a Hottentot. I was sure that I did not look like that dreadful name which had suddenly sprung upon grandmother"s lips. It had such an awful sound!
"She"s no worse than other children," my mother urged, in defence.
She might blame me herself, but when grandmother Harcourt looked over her spectacles and invented names my mother was sure to grow angry.
"It seems to me that I"ve heard about Hottentots before," granddad Lawrence went on, nodding his head. "They"re very fond of candy, Hottentots are, and they like their own way. Yes, they like their own way."
"Not any more than other children," my mother said again. "Rhoda gets into mischief solely because she has nothing to do."
"Why don"t you send her to school?" granddad Lawrence asked. "She is seven years old."
"Oh, I couldn"t send her to school!" my mother cried, anxiously.
"No, not yet," grandmother protested, in her turn.
It was the one subject upon which they agreed.
"Well, let her take lessons in something, then. There"s the piano standing untouched. I"ve heard of Hottentots who had a very good ear for music."
He pinched my ear as he spoke, and puffed out his cheeks in a funny way, as he always did when he wanted to laugh. He had very little hair on his head, and a round, pink face like a baby"s, and a pair of wicked blue eyes that saw everything, both before and behind him. I had never heard of granddad Lawrence being cross. He was good to everybody, from the little newsboy who ran after him every morning in the street to the stray dogs which selected him for a master on account of his smile. Most of all he was good to us, his grandchildren, and hardly a day pa.s.sed by that granddad Lawrence did not come walking in to hear the news. There were no children at his own house, for Auntie May was growing into a young lady, and granddad Lawrence liked children, being a child himself at heart, with all a child"s love of mischief. But to the friends who trusted in him, he was the soul of loyalty, in thought as well as in word.
When he went home I walked out to the hall door with him, as I always did, and then we had what he called a mercantile transaction. He bent down low, and patted his pocket.
"Don"t you want to draw on the bank?" he asked, invitingly.
I ran my hand far into the depths of that jingling pocket. I could have whatever I liked, but the little bra.s.s pennies were the prettiest, and the cute little silver ten-cent pieces, which seemed especially made for children.
"Draw again," he said, generously. "Now give the cashier a kiss."
I did not kiss him for pennies. I kissed him for pure love.
"Come again, dear granddad," I said, standing at the door to peep after him. "Come again to-morrow."
He waved his hand to me.
"Good-bye, Hottentot," he called, mischievously.
"Good-bye," I answered, in rather a plaintive voice.
I did not think that I liked my new name.
That was the first occasion on which I heard of my music lessons, but not the last. My mother seemed to take wonderfully to the idea. She was always discussing the things that she meant us to learn, but up to then we had been too small for any of her plans to be of much importance. To take music lessons was a very simple matter. It could not be considered work, but play on a larger scale; and after I had slipped into the parlor, and touched the piano keys with a timorous finger, I knew that I should like it. The keys were voices. When grown-up people touched them, they sang together beautifully. There was one which was a fairy queen, and one which was a prince, and one away down in the lower ba.s.s made me tremble when it talked. That was an ogre. I thought that he might eat little children. I ran out of the parlor in a hurry for fear that he should catch me. Something pattered up the stairs behind me, and chased me along the hall, but in my mother"s room not even an ogre would dare to come.
"She loves music!" my mother cried. "She is always hanging around the piano."
Grandmother looked at me curiously.
"There has never been a musician in our family," she remarked, in a dubious way.
"I played before I was married," my mother answered. "There doesn"t seem to be any time for it now."
She sighed a little as she spoke.
Her lap was full of pretty new cloth which she was making into dresses, and one of the twins was riding on the rockers of her chair, and one was whistling, shrilly. My mother rocked slowly that there might not be an accident. Most people would have thought that she was only a mother, but at that precise moment she was, also, an express train coming into a station, and I was a pa.s.senger waiting to get aboard.
"I think I"ll get Madame Tomaso to give Rhoda lessons," she said. "We might as well have the best teacher in town. Dad had the best for me when I was a child. It is the first step which always counts."
The whistle sounded again, and two pa.s.sengers climbed into the rocker behind my mother"s back. We were a very tight fit for the chair. She sat a little forward in a meek way, so as to make room for our toes, and rocked more slowly. The train was going uphill carrying a heavy load.
When she was consulted on the subject, Madame Tomaso proved to be very glad to give me lessons. For some reason or other it had been a poor season for her, either because there were only a few little girls musically inclined in the town, or because, which seems more probable, she had a name for severity. She appeared very amiable, however, the first morning that she entered our house. She drew me to her, with quite a motherly hand, when I came bashfully into the parlor to meet her.
"So this is the small Miss," she said, in a terrifying voice like the ogre"s. "And she loves the music? It is well."
She shook hands with me very hard. She had on a dress trimmed with bits of black gla.s.s,--I always hated jet afterwards,--and a red silk collar which exactly matched the hearty red in her cheeks. Her hair was black, and her eyes were black. I did not quite like the way that she looked at me. I wondered if she ate little children.
"She is so bright," my mother declared, fondly, pushing the hair back from my forehead. "Stand up straight, Rhoda. You will find that she learns very quickly, Madame Tomaso."
"So?" the ogress answered, in an absent manner.
She was looking at the piano-stool and at me. She was evidently wild to begin, and had not much time to spare for motherly confidences.
"I am afraid that she might fall off the stool," my mother said, hurriedly. "Couldn"t you use a chair, Madame Tomaso? Though the chairs are rather low for such a little girl."
They made a chair higher with a big book and a sofa pillow, and set me on top in front of the fascinating white keys. The twins were peeping in the door. I looked back at them grandly. I felt very old and important.
It seemed almost impossible that only that morning we had been playing express trains together, like children! Still, there was something about it which frightened me, notwithstanding my pride.
"Go away!" I whispered, warningly, to the figures at the door.
They went quickly in evident alarm. Even d.i.c.k did not stop for a second look.
"Will she hurt sister?" Trixie asked, in a high voice, as they climbed upstairs.
d.i.c.k peered between the banisters.
"If she does, I"ll shoot her," he declared, stoutly.
I was glad to see them escape, but I did not like it quite so well when my mother followed them, and the door was tightly closed. I had such a trapped feeling. And the pillow was so high that I could not get down without help. Anything might happen! Madame Tomaso yawned a little as she settled down by my side, but she was still kind. She put a paper in front of me which was covered with black scratches.
"Which is "a"?" she asked, sociably, pointing to a row of things.
""A" was an Archer who shot at a Frog," I recited, in a timid whisper.