The Middle Moffat (4 page)

Now the children were all sitting on the long green lawn waiting for Mr. I. Bimber's moving man to bring the organ. The little green-and-white parlor was all ready for it. Joey had moved the big armchair out of the corner, and Janey had dusted carefully not only that corner but the entire room. Then they had washed the windows and the room sparkled, with clean curtains fluttering in the breeze.

"Do you think the organ will have one of those winding pianner stools to it?" asked Rufus. Oh, he did hope it would, so he could twirl it around and around.

"Oh, sure, it will have one of those," Joe answered confidently.

Jane was thinking they could give organ recitals. They might charge admission and the Moffats would get rich. Goodness! What was she thinking? Charge admission for music? Music should be free, like at Woolsey Hall. "Seated one day at the organ," she sang.

The moving man drove up.

"Mama, here it comes!" shouted Rufus, while Joe and Jane tried to act more dignified to impress the neighbors. Sylvie waited until the little organ was carried over and carefully backed into its corner in the green-and-white parlor. Then she ran out the door and down the street, saying she was going to be late to choir rehearsal. She really ran off because she did not want anyone to see the tears in her eyes. All her life she had wanted a piano and to take piano lessons, and now here was this funny little organ that smelled faintly of camphor.

Mama looked out of the window after Sylvie for a moment. Then with a little sigh she went back to the dining-room table, where she was cutting out flannel nightgowns for Miss Buckle.

This left Rufus, Jane, and Joe to admire the organ and really give it a welcome.

"Hey," said Rufus suddenly, "it hasn't got any pianner stool."

So it didn't. Joe ran after Mr. I. Bimber's moving man. Perhaps he had forgotten to bring it. But no, that's all there was.

"Mama," wailed Rufus, "there isn't any pianner stool to this organ."

"Oh, no," Mama replied. "I forget to tell you Mrs. Price decided in the end to keep the piano stool. She likes to sit on it when she makes her raspberry jam. She said something about not having pointed at it anyway, that she'd only pointed at the organ. I don't know what she was talking about."

"Oh, dear," said Jane ruefully. "Well, a chair will have to do." But pleasure in the organ was almost ruined for Rufus, who had looked forward so to twirling a piano stool.

They set one of the straight chairs from the kitchen in front of the organ, and Joey, being the oldest of the three, sat down to play.

You had to pump the pedals of this organ with your feet all the time you were playing the keys with your fingers. First Joey played the scale.

"Play something real," said Rufus.

Then by ear, Joe played with one finger "My Country, Tis of Thee." After that he played "Old Black Joe." Next Jane played "Old Black Joe" by ear. And finally Rufus, who had waited very impatiently for his turn, slowly picked out the notes for "My Country, Tis of Thee" with his chubby forefinger. Only Rufus couldn't pump with his feet because his legs were too short to reach the pedals. Jane or Joe had to pump for him.

They loved the organ. They played "Old Black Joe" over and over again. They took turns the whole afternoon. This pumping with your feet was a strange sort of business, they thought, but they had had good training, Joey on his bicycle and Jane on the sewing machine. Soon they were able to play "Old Black Joe" with both forefingers an octave apart. Now they really had music.

Rufus discovered two small round wooden trays that hinged to both ends of the organ beside the keys. They were covered with green felt.

"What are those for?" asked Rufus.

"For vases of flowers?" asked Jane.

"For lamps maybe," said Joe. They put the two smallest oil lamps on either side. What a sight that would be at Christmas time! The tree lit, and the lamps on the organ lit, and one of them seated at the organ, playing.

Then they carefully placed Mama's mandolin on top of the organ. And Rufus went digging among his things for his harmonica. When he found it he got up on the chair and put it beside the mandolin. A toy xylophone that had been in the family a long time completed the collection.

"There!" said Jane. "This is the music room. All we need now is sheets of music with the notes on them."

"I like better playing by ear," said Joe.

"Yes, I do, too," said Jane, "but it looks good to see music on the organ."

When Sylvie came home from choir rehearsal she was easily persuaded to put her precious sheets of music on the organ. Now everything was beautiful. Mama admired the music room and said, "Isn't it a pity I had to sell my lovely guitar?" Then she went into the kitchen to prepare the supper while Sylvie sat down to play.

Sylvie could play the organ with both hands and the hands played different parts. She also used all her fingers. She had practiced quite a lot on the piano in the parish house.

Jane sat in the big armchair, her legs flung over one of the arms. She was thinking yesterday they didn't have an organ and today they did, and the best thing to do with an organ was to give organ recitals. She wanted to give the organ recitals herself. "Seated one day at the organ," she hummed. That's what Sylvie was playing now. Sylvie was the best player of all the four Moffats. There was no doubt about it. Perhaps Sylvie was the one who should give the organ recitals. But when did Sylvie ever have time? Choir rehearsals, plays at the Town Hall, her dances, her friends, her diary, drawing! All these things took up Sylvie's time. She was hardly ever at home.

Maybe it would not take Janey long, a few days, say, to catch up with Sylvie and play as well as she. What Janey wanted in the organ recitals was loud notes, one running into the next, that would almost shake the house down. She did not want the drowsy kind that nearly put you to sleep, like the droning of insects on a hot afternoon.

Excitement over the organ continued for some days, and it reached its peak the following Saturday. That was the day that Janey decided to give her first organ recital. All during the week she had become more and more entranced with this idea. She decided to give the recital herself and she told no one about it, for she meant it to be a surprise to the rest of the family. She had first planned to give the organ recital on Sunday, which would give her another day to practice, but when she heard that Mr. Julius Sampson was giving one himself that day at Woolsey Hall, she changed her day to Saturday. She would not wish to take away any of his audience. So Saturday was to be the day. Janey tried to keep the music thundering and crashing through her mind, the way she remembered it had done at Woolsey Hall. The trouble was that whenever she tried to practice that way, Mama would call out from the kitchen, "Janey, play softly, please!"

But another real drawback was that Jane simply did not have the time to practice. Rufus and Joey were still just as eager to play the organ as she was, and they all three wanted to play at the same time. Jane and Joe got tired of pumping for Rufus. However, he cleverly learned to play standing up, while pumping with one foot.

Rufus could always outwit his short legs. He had learned to ride Joey's bike by sticking one leg under the crossbar to the far pedal. The oldest inhabitant saw him riding this way one day and exclaimed, "My, what an extraordinary sense of balance this fellow has!"

Mama said Rufus would break the organ, but Rufus loved playing so much he wouldn't stop.

So Saturday morning came without Janey having had a great deal of time at the organ. But whenever she thought of the way the music sounded in Woolsey Hall, she was confident it would sound as well in the Moffats' green-and-white parlor. She made a sign in large red crayon letters: "Organ Recital at two o'clock by
one of the Moffats
." She did not say
by Jane Moffat,
because she thought that if she got scared she would persuade Rufus to play, as he was such an odd sight, standing and pumping with one foot and playing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." That is all Rufus could play, but he could play that like lightning. She nailed the sign to the porch.

"What does that say?" asked Rufus curiously.

"This says organ recital at two o'clock," said Jane.

"Oh," said Rufus, not in the least surprised. "Well, who's going to see that sign way back here?"

That's right,
thought Jane,
who could see it?
The Moffats' house was set so far back from the street that no one passing by could see the sign. So she took it down and tied it to the large elm tree in front of their long green lawn. After this, Jane chased Rufus away from the organ for the rest of the morning so she could practice. She was firm about it.

"Rufus, go away," she said. "After the recital this afternoon you can have the organ for all the rest of the day."

However, she remembered she might need him; so she added, "But don't go far, you ought to be here for the recital 'cause I'm your sister."

She was a little disturbed to find that Joey had already gone on an all-day hike out to the Sleeping Giant. And that Sylvie had planned to spend the day making paper flowers for the fair at the parish house. Goodness! She'd better see that Rufus stayed around in case she needed help. In the meanwhile she wished Mama would go somewhere, for it was hard to make the kind of music that rocked the house with Mama saying all the time, "Oh, Jane, please! Don't make all that noise."

At last, however, Mama put on her hat and gloves and went to town to buy the week's provisions. Then Jane tried crashing the music out on the organ for all she was worth.

Rufus tore from the house bellowing, "Criminenty, Jane!" And he didn't come back until it was time for lunch.

He really doesn't appreciate music,
thought Jane.
But then, he's awfully little,
she excused him.

To tell the truth, though, Jane herself was far from satisfied with her playing. Even with no one around she could not get that swelling effect that she wanted. Also the right pedal had taken to giving a rasping gasp every time she brought her foot down on it. Feeling tired, Jane sat back and let the music thunder and swell only in her head. She decided not to practice anymore, but to keep the music in her head this way and then just crash it out at two o'clock.