Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-03-11
A MUCH-.ABUSED PIANO

II the p1an@ IN the reception parior OF the
family hotel where i've and have my being
isn't ennuye and sick OF itself and bored to
DEATH" said the department official who
graduated In Jaw het8 fourteen years ago,
but who Is stll hold34g on to the pay roll
because he cal # thih1 Of any place to prac-
tice. then ity pia Of Job-like patience
and built to Fithstand anything that can
hereinafter b@fall It.
1.-THE tlingssthat tts one hundred and If
teen Inauguration 9nests of that family
hotel did to txat plaHp during the three or
four days Of their towering about the estab-
lishment were enough to make any normal.
ordinarily constructed piano back out OF the
room on Its four legs and take to the wilds
of Bladensburg
THE piano was in the hands Of the enc
mics OF music and the hanky-panks, ana
what they didn't do to it could be inscribed
on grain of wheat with a whiteWashlns
brush.
II listened to the maddening throng en-
gagged In the act Of trying to beat that plano
to death for a whole afternoon because
couldn't help myself, having been delegated
by the landlady's brother to do what l
could to look after the comfort OF the
guests, and when 1t was all over went out,
deliberately and with my eyes wide open 10
the consequences, and went down town and
stayed real late, so did.
THE first gay dog to take q wallop at the
piano that afternoon was cut-up from
Point o Rocks. or some such place, with
red. white and blue band around his low
lying soft hat
He was acquainted with two tonsorial
parlor chords, tum-tum-tum, tum-tum-tum,
and he loved them with all of the wild
alteration of his bucolic mfdriff. He handed
about forty-five minutes, and then he look
| ed around, .self-consciously for Wild ac-
claim and tumultuous applause.
However he, was Sdged Off the stool
yrIS
part OF Little Fisher Maiden She play
| ed this first part seventeen times, and she
kept both OF her feet On the hard pedal all
| the time.
1.-The little girl was succeeded by young
| woman who was familiar with nearly nina
| bars of the 'Miserere' from III Trovatore.
This young woman went into a trance when
she began to eXecute-eXecute is right
| those nine bare, and she didn't emerge from
! the trance till she had da-dapo-ed on the
| composition fully twenty-Seven times 1t
was TIA, ia, ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-you remem-
| Der the first few bars of the 'Miserere'-
until it began to seem to me that had al
| ways hated Verdi and all Of his works
when she came out of her trance. a man
| who looked like plumbers helper figured
| himself to be next on the program.
He did a left-hand obligato-there was
| nothing doing with his rightly playing,
twenty or thirty times, the last bar or
| Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep-'Tum,
| tum, tum-tum- tum -tum-tum. daw, away
down to the cellar note, which he hit W'th
| a wallop every time as if he had a grev-
| ance against it. Then he started to baWl
| that last bar-RWked in thaw craWdaWl
| awv thaw daw-eep. He eventually tumbled
| to the fact that there was a long line of
people waiting to get a chance at the
piano, and then he reluctantly got up and
gave way to a man who knew how to ham,
| mer just enough chords to accompany his
whistlng. This man whstled everything
| that came into his head in a piercing tone,
| but, try as he might, he couldn't whistle
how do I,
| his left hand on the patient piano.
He finally after about an hour, sur
| rendered the stool tocthe girl who remem-
| bered her one seminary piece, Monastery
| Bells, so thoroughly that she never will
| forget it. She didn't play anything else
| without her music. she said. but she sure
| played that one piece a-plenty. She spread
| herself all over on the few simple little
them look terrifically difficult, and she
passed under the wire going strong.
by this time two or three permanent
guests of the house who were sitting help
lessly around swere almost too numb to
protest even to each other, but when a lit
| tie man with a bald head and a suit of
Eand-me-downsS that looked II they d
been left out in the rain five nights running
| sat down at the piano and began to inspect
| the gilt-lettered name of the instrument
| with great deal of curiosity, one of the
permanent guests remarked, Now we're
going to have some pfano-forte music by a
man who apparently never even saw a
piano before t11 Il
Then the little baId-headed man In the
suit of hand-me downs waded in, and the
way he picked up and ran away with the
music of Chopin was just caution to
grasshoppers He just knew the piano,
| coming and going, and all ways from the
middle, and when he broke into a superb
| rendering Of the Moonlight Sonata we
| felt. somehow as if we'd been buncoed
| and were glad of it. He didn't peek around
| for any applause when he finished treating
| US, but just skddoed on his way without
| even turning around.
THAT settled it for that afternoon. They
weren't retiring or bashful lot, but none
| of them had the nerve to touch the piano
after that genuine artist, the bald-headed
| man, had got through with it."