The Tangled Threads | Page 3

that," swiftly demanded Hester.
Penelope's cheeks grew pink, but her fingers did not falter. Hester drew
a long breath.
"Oh, how quick you've learned 'em!" she exclaimed.
Her daughter hesitated a tempted moment.
"Well--I--I learned the notes in school," she finally acknowledged,

looking sidewise at her mother.
But even this admission did not lessen for Hester the halo of glory
about Penelope's head. She drew another long breath.
"But what else did Miss Gale say? Tell me everything--every single
thing," she reiterated hungrily.
That was not only Penelope's first lesson, but Hester's. The child,
flushed and important with her sudden promotion from pupil to teacher,
scrupulously repeated each point in the lesson, and the woman, humble
and earnestly attentive, listened with bated breath. Then, Penelope, still
airily consequential, practiced for almost an hour.
Monday, when the children were at school, Hester stole into the parlor
and timidly seated herself at the piano.
"I think--I am almost sure I could do it," she whispered, studying with
eager eyes the open book on the music rack. "I--I'm going to try,
anyhow!" she finished resolutely.
And Hester did try, not only then, but on Tuesday, Wednesday, and
thus until Saturday--that Saturday which brought with it a second
lesson.
The weeks passed swiftly after that. Hester's tasks seemed lighter and
her burdens less grievous since there was now that ever-present
refuge--the piano. It was marvelous what a multitude of headaches and
heartaches five minutes of scales, even, could banish; and when actual
presence at the piano was impossible, there were yet memory and
anticipation left her.
For two of these weeks Penelope practiced her allotted hour with a
patience born of the novelty of the experience. The third week the
"hour" dwindled perceptibly, and the fourth week it was scarcely thirty
minutes long.
"Come, dearie, don't forget your practice," Hester sometimes cautioned

anxiously.
"Oh, dear me suz!" Penelope would sigh, and Hester would watch her
with puzzled eyes as she disconsolately pulled out the piano stool.
"Penelope," she threatened one day, "I shall certainly stop your
lessons--you don't half appreciate them." But she was shocked and
frightened at the relief that so quickly showed in her young daughter's
eyes. Hester never made that threat again, for if Penelope's lessons
stopped--
As the weeks lengthened into months, bits of harmony and snatches of
melody became more and more frequent in Penelope's lessons, and the
"exercises" were supplemented by occasional "pieces"--simple, yet
boasting a name. But when Penelope played "Down by the Mill," one
heard only the notes--accurate, rhythmic, an excellent imitation; when
Hester played it, one might catch the whir of the wheel, the swish of the
foaming brook, and almost the spicy smell of the sawdust, so vividly
was the scene brought to mind.
Many a time, now, the old childhood dreams came back to Hester, and
her fingers would drift into tender melodies and minor chords not on
the printed page, until all the stifled love and longing of those dreary,
colorless years of the past found voice at her finger-tips.
The stately marches and the rollicking dances of the cloud music came
easily at her beck and call--now grave, now gay; now slow and
measured, now tripping in weird harmonies and gay melodies.
Hester's blood quickened and her cheeks grew pink. Her eyes lost their
yearning look and her lips their wistful curves.
Every week she faithfully took her lesson of Penelope, and she
practiced only that when the children were about. It was when they
were at school and she was alone that the great joy of this new-found
treasure of improvising came to her, and she could set free her heart
and soul on the ivory keys.

She was playing thus one night--forgetting time, self, and that Penelope
would soon be home from school--when the child entered the house
and stopped, amazed, in the parlor doorway. As the last mellow note
died into silence, Penelope dropped her books and burst into tears.
"Why, darling, what is it?" cried Hester. "What can be the matter?"
"I--I don't know," faltered Penelope, looking at her mother with startled
eyes. "Why--why did n't you tell me?"
"Tell you?"
"That--that you could--p-play that way! I--I did n't know," she wailed
with another storm of sobs, rushing into her mother's arms.
Hester's clasp tightened about the quivering little form and her eyes
grew luminous.
"Dearie," she began very softly, "there was once a little girl--a little girl
like you. She was very, very poor, and all her days were full of work.
She had no piano, no music lessons--but, oh, how she longed for them!
The trees and the grass and the winds and the flowers sang all day in
her ears, but she could n't tell what they said. By and by, after many,
many years, this little