Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1913 — GOOD-BYE TO AN OLD PIANO [ARTICLE]

GOOD-BYE TO AN OLD PIANO

"I’ve been thinking the matter over,” wa tti tn ntnr TVo octici trier tan tuniiiiuicr, dull x YtJ about come to the conclusion that the younger generation of the present day is thoroughly devoid of sentiment.' "I wish my wife could hear you,” dissented the commuter's neighbor. “Within the comparatively short space of eight months, no less than five trembling ladies have fluttered forth into the world, via our back kitchen step. Tou mightn't think it from JUBt a casual survey of our modest establishment, but, sir, we have harbored not only sentiment of- the native-born variety, but have encountered the Imported sort as well. Did you ever chance to overhear a Polish lover telling his heart’s delight what he thought of her?”

“Could anyone live in this particular suburb and not hear it?” asked the tall commuter sadly; "but that is not the kind of sentiment to . which I refer. What I have in mind is the sentiment that attaches to things or places with which one has been associated for a long time.” “Well," said the seatmatet, "my experience if this. I find that when I have been associated with ‘things’ a long time, they wear out, and in nine cases out of ten the only sentiment I can scare 'up is Intense annoyance. Take my typewriter machine as a case in point. The ‘sentiments’ .that I harbor for that hoary piece of mechanism would melt the type, should I endeavor to reduce them to print.’* "My wife and I went over to visit her mother last night,” said the tall commuter. Ignoring, after a happy fashion all his own, his companion’s remarks about his typewriter, "and when we got there we saw as neat a bit of twentieth century callousness as I ever laid my eyes on. All the youths of the neighborhood were gathered in the family sitting room, around one of those ‘horseless pianos’ that my in-laws have Just acquired. As the poets say, ‘Joy reigned supreme.’ They were waltzing and twostepping, and singing and chorusing, and committing more offenses against, the laws of harmony by their failures to keep on the key than I can bear to remember.”

"It's news to me that yon are a high-brow where music is concerned.” said the skeptical listener. "I have the privilege of knowing what I like, havent I?" Inquired the upholder of sentiment loftily; "but as a matter of fact, I did not start this conversation for the purpose of revealing the capacity of my younger in-laws to commit musical murder.” "You make the same mistake every day, don't you?” asked the fellowtraveler, Innocently. “You always call your monologues ’conversations." The tall commuter grinned. "What I want to show up is their Inhuman Indifference to the faithful old piano that has withstood their combined poundings. There it stood la a corner of thq piazza, where they had obligingly rolled it so as to facilitate the wort* of getting rid of It when the firm from which they had bought the new piano should send for the worn-out old giant the next day.” "Well, you know, they do worse to square pianos than stead them out on nice dry porches nowadays.” an-

nounced pte auditor. “Why, I read not long ago about a manufacturer who burned up five hundred of them out in his back lots. \ It was bad for the pianos, but good for business, you know.” “I’m not one to block the wheels of progress, you know that,” said the tall commute/, "but I would have liked it If even one of the youngsters had remembered the good times that old piano had given him or her. If he had thought even once of the children’s parties, when my wife, who la the big sister of the family, used to play all sorts of lively little Jig tunes for them, when they danced the 'Virginia Reel’ and ‘Going to Jerusalem/ They used to have family singing of an evening. Why, one of the things that helped me fall in love with my wife was the picture she used to make as she sat and played for her herd of little sisters and brothers a* »they sang their Sunday * evening hymns." “Did they sing any better than you say they do now?" breathed the listener, guardedly. As usual, the tall commuter ignored him. "My wife ” he went on, "felt Just as I did about it, and when we were going home we shut the door on that crowd of vandals and went around to the side of the piazza to take a good-bye look at the old piano.” ‘T thought your eyes looked a trifle red this morning," said the unfeeling confidant. "If I didn’t know you to be a thousand pqr cent better than you sound, I'd rather choose another seat for my daily trip,” announced the tall commuter. "Well, we went around to say good-bye to the old piano, and my wife told me the first flowers I ever sent her were lying on the piano when she came In from school—you know, she used to teach. They were lilles-of-the-valley, and it was deep winter. I don’t remember having luncheon downtown for 'a month after buying them.” "For a sentimentalist, your memory of the flowers seems material enough.” "Then, I had forgotten this, but my wife says she had Just stopped playing when I asked her to marry me." "An uncontrollable burst of gratitude on your part, I dare say,” chuckled the Philistine. "Say," anonunced the tall commuter, "I*m going to finish these remarks about my In-laws’ old piano, whether you like it or not. We, well, we finished our adieus, and started home, when my wife ran back. She said she had forgotten something, but. do you know, I bet a dollar she ran back to kiss that old piano good-bye.” "Well, well,” mused the seatmate, "it seems like a terrible waste of a good material, when a nice little lady like your wife lavishes caresses on ao mahogany case. But it is a good trait to stick to old friends, even inanimate ones. I’ve no doubt my wife would do the same.” "Sure she would." agreed the tall commuter. "That new Conductor with the megaphone voice is getting ready to shout ‘Woodside, change for Pennsylvania station.’” A dog can attract attention by scaring up a rabbit, but a man must work very hard and accomplish a great deal before the people begin to glance In his direction. When a man carries a girl’s parasol he is in love with hen When she carries her own parasol she la la love with him. V-: : ' '-i