Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1886 — AN AMUSING SKETCH. [ARTICLE]

AN AMUSING SKETCH.

Jud I!rowuiit's Famous Account oi Bubcnstcin's Playing on the Piano. * “Jud, they sAy you have heard Rubinsfcein play when you were in New York?” <3* - \l did, in the cool. ” “Well, tell us all about it.” “What! me ? I might’s well tell you abmit the creation of the world. ” txiome now; no mock modesty. Go ahead.” “Well, sir, he had the biggest, cattyoomerdest pianner you ever laid your eyes on; somethin’ like a distracted billiard table or three legs. The lid washeisted, and mighty well it was. If it hadn’t he’d a tore the intire sides clean out, and scattered them to the four winds of heaven. ” » “Played weH, did he?” < “You bet he did; but don’t interrupt me. When he first sat down he ’peered to keer mighty little ’bout playin’ and wish’t he hadn’t come. He t weedleeedled onthetrible a little, and twoodleoodled some on the bass—justr foolin’ and boxin’ the thing jaws, for being in his way. And I says to the man settin’ next to me, s’ I, ‘What sort of foolplayin’is that ? And he says ‘Hush!’ But presently his hands began chasin’ one ’nother up and down the keys, like a parcel of rats scamperin’ through a garret very swift. Parts of it was sweet, though, and reminded me of a sugar-squirrel turning the wheel of a candy-cage. “ ‘Now,’ I says to ray neighbor, ‘he’s a showing off. He thinks he’s a doin’ of it, but he ain’t got no ido, no plan of nothin’. If he’d play a time of some kind or other, I’d- ’ “But my neighbor says ‘Jleigh,’ very impatient.

“J was just about to git up and go home, bein’ tired of that foolishness, when I heard a little bird waking away off in the woods, and calling sleepy-like to liis mate, and I looked up, and I see that Rubin was beginnin’ to take some interest in his business, and I set down agin. It was the peep of day. The light came faint from the east, the breeze blowed gentle and fresh, some birds waked up in the orchard, then some more in the trees near the house, and all begun singin’ together. People began to stir and the gal opened the shutters. Just then the first beam of the sun fell upon the blossoms a leetle more, and it techt the roses on the bushes, and the next thing it was the broad day; the sun fairly blazed, the birds sang like they’d split their throat; all the leaves were movin’ and flashin’ diamonds of dew, and the whole wide world was bright and happy as a king. Seemed to me like there was a good ' breakfast in every house in the land, and not a sick child or woman anywhere. It was a fine mdmin’. “And I says to my neighbor, ‘That’s music, that is.’ “But he glanced at me like he’d cut my throat. “Presently the wind turned; it began to thicken up and a kind of thick gray mist came over things; I got lowspirited directly. Then a silver rain began'to fall. I could see the drops touch the ground, some flashed up like long pearl ear-rings, and the rest rolled

away like rubies. It was pretty, but melancholy. Then the pearls gathered themselves into long strands and necklaces, and then they melted into thin silver streams running between golden gravels, and then the streams joined each other at the bottom of the hill, and made a brook that flowed silent, except that you could kinder see music, —especially when the business on the bank moved as the music went along down the valley. I oould smell the flowers in the meadow. But the sun didn’t shine, nor the birds sing; it was a foggy day, but not cold. The most -curious thing was the little white angel boV, like you see in pictures, that run ahead of the music book, and led it on and on, away out. of the world, , where no man ever 'was—l never was, certain. I could see the boy just as plain as I see you. Then tiie moonlight came, without any sunset, and shone on the graveyards, over the wall and between the black sharp-top trees splendid marble houses rose up, with fine ladies in the lit-up windows, and men that loved ’em, but never got nigh ’em, and played on guitars under the trees, and made me that miserable l could a-cried, because I wanted to love somebody, (didn't know who, better than the then with guitars did. Then the mm went down, it got dark,

the wind moaned and wept like a lost child for its' dead mother, and I could agot up and there and then preaoheda bettor sermon than any I ever listened to. There wasn’t a thing in the world left to live for, not a single thing, and yet I didn’t want the music to stop one bit. It was happier to be miserable than to be happy without being miserable. I hung my head and pulled out my handkerchief, and blowed my nose to keep from cryin’. Mv eyes is weak anyway; I didn’t want anybody to be gazing at me a-snivellin’, and its none of nobody’s business what I do with my nose. It's mine. But several glared at me as mad as Tucker. Then, all of a sudden, old Rubin Changed, his tune. He rip’d and he rav’d, he tip’d and he tar'd, and he . charged like the grand entry at a circus. ’Reared to me that all the gas in the house was) turned on at once, things got so bright, and I held up my head ready to look a* any man in the face, and not a fear'd oj nothin’. It was a circus, and a liras:) band, and a big ball, all going on at tin) same time. He lit into them keys like a thousand of bricks; he gave ’em no rest, day nor night; he set every livinf joint in me a goin’, and not bein’able to* stand it no longer, I jumpt, sprang into my seat, and jest ho-llcred. ‘“Go it, my Rube!’ “Every man, woman, and child in tod house riz on me, and shouted ‘Put him, out! put him out!’ “Put your great-grandmother’s grizzly gray greenish cat’-into the middle oj next month,’ I says. ‘Tech me if von dare! I paid my money, and you jess come a-nigh me!’ “With that several policeman rau up and I had to simmer down. But I would a fit any fool that laid hands on me, for I was bound to hear Rube out or die.

“He had changed his tune again. He lropt like ladies and tip-toed fine from end to end of the key-board. Ho played soft, and low, and solemn. I heard the church bells over the hills. i The candles in heaven were lit one by one; I saw the stars rise. The great organ" of eternity began to play from the world’s end to the world’s end; and the angels went to prayers. * * * Then the music cjianged to water full of felling that couldn’t be thought, and began to drop —drip,, drop, drip, drop—clear and sweet, like tears of joy failin’ into a lake of glorv. It was as sweet as a sweetheart sweetn’d with white sugar, mixed with powdered silver and seed diamonds. It was too sweet. I tell you the audience cheered. Bubin, he kinder bowed, like he wanted to say, ‘Much obleeged, but I’d rather you wouldn’t interrupt me.’ “He stopped a minute or two to fetch breath. Then he got mad. He runs his fingers through liis hair, lie shoved up his sleeves, he opened up liis coat tails a little further, he drug up liis stbol, he leaned over, and, sir, he just went for that old pianner. He si a] it her face, lie boxed her face, ho pulled her nose, he pinched her ears, and he scratched her cheek till she fairly yelled. He knock’t her down, and he stampt off her shameful. She bellowed like a bull,' she bleated like a calf, rfhe shrieked like a rat, and then he wouldn’klet her up.He ran a quarter stretch down the lowj grounds of the baps, till he got cleaq into the bowels of the earth, and yoq l*ard thunder galloping after thunder, toto’ toe hollows and eaves of perdition; lin'd then he fox-chased his light liantj with his left till he got away out. of tho treble into the clouds, wliar the note* was finer than the points of cambric needles, and you couldn't bear but tliq shudders of ’em. And then he wouldiri let the old pianner go. He for’ard and two’d, lie eross’t over first gentleman, he cross’t over first lady, he balanced

two pards, he chassed right ancf left, back to your places, he all hands aroun’, ladies to the right, promenade* all, in and out, here ami there, back! and forth, up and down, perpetual mo-; tion, double, and twisted, and turned, and “tacked, and tangled into forty--’levefi thousand double bow knots. “It was a mystery. And then he wouldn’t let the old pianner go. He; fetcht up his right wing, he fetcht up his left wing, lie fetcht up his center, lie fecht up his reserves. He fired by fiie, he fired by platoons, by company, by regiments, by brigades. . He opened liis cannon, siege gun down tbar, Napoleons here, twelve-pounders yonder, big guns, little guns, middlesize guns, round, shot, shells, shrapnels, grape, canister, mortars, mines, and magazines, every livin’ battery and bomb a-goin’ at the same time. The house trembled, the lights danced, and the walls shuk, the floor came up, the ceilin’ come down, the sky split, the ground rockt—heaven and earth, creation, sweet potatoes, Moses, ninepences, gldrv, tenpenny nails, my Mary Ann, Hallelujah, Samson in a simmon tree, Jerusalem, Tump Thompson in a tumbler cart, roodle - oodle - oodle-oodle

ruddle-uddle-uddle-uddle-raddle- addle-addle-addle-riddle-- iddle-iddle - iddle-rettle-ettle-ettle-ettle-p-r-r-r-r-lang! per king! p-r-r-r-r-r-lang! Bang! “With that bang lie lifted himself bodily into the air, and he came down with his knees, his ten fingers, his ten toes, his elbows aud his nose, striking every single Solitary key on that pianner at the ! same time. The thing busted and went off into seventeen hundred and fifty-seven thousand five hundred and forty-two hemi-demi-semi- . quavers, and I know’d no mo.”