The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

CHAPTER 6

MUSIC LESSONS

It is most difficult always to remember that the increase of every living being is constantly being checked by unperceived injurious agencies. . . .

THE SUMMER WORE ON, and I found respite in the coolness of the river and the dimness of Granddaddy’s laboratory. My Notebook progressed nicely, each page filled with many Questions, an occasional Answer, and clumsy illustrations of various plants and animals. But despite my pressing new activities, I was not excused from my music lessons.

Our piano teacher, Miss Brown, looked like a thin, dry stick, but she could swing her ruler with plenty of juice when she thought no one was looking. Sometimes she would smack my knuckles so hard that my hands crashed into the keys, causing an ugly dissonant chord to detonate in the middle of the piece. I wonder if my mother, sitting on the other side of the closed pocket doors with her sewing basket, ever puzzled over these frightful noises. For some reason, I didn’t tell her about Miss Brown’s assaults. Why didn’t I? I guess I had the sense that something shameful on my part—I don’t know what—invited these pedagogic outrages. And it’s true that Miss Brown did not attack me at random. Her violence boiled over when I got lost picking my way through the thicket of notes I’d been traversing without mistake all week long. (Of course, the hovering ruler didn’t help.) I was the worst kind of coward; I seethed in silence and never said anything to anybody. And why did only Harry and I have to suffer through this wretched weekly imposition of culture? My other brothers were free and clear.

I learned to play Mr. Stephen Foster for Father and Vivaldi for Granddaddy, who was also partial to Mozart. He would sit in the parlor, sometimes reading, sometimes sitting with his eyes closed, for as long as I would play. Mother was partial to Chopin. Miss Brown was partial to scales.

Later there were Mr. Scott Joplin’s rags, which I learned for myself. They set Mother’s teeth on edge, but I didn’t care. It was the best music my brothers and I had ever heard, with gorgeous cascading chords and an electrifying ragged timing, which compelled the audience to get up and dance. All of my brothers came running when I struck up the opening bars to “The Maple Leaf Rag.” They lurched so wildly around the parlor that Mother feared for the very pictures on the wall. Later we got a gramophone and then I could dance, too. My younger brothers adored running the machine and begged to take a turn, but you had to watch them—they were murder on the crank.

Jim Bowie’s favorite tune was “Kitten on the Keys.” He’d manhandle one of the beleaguered cats up onto the keyboard and coax it with a scrap of ham to walk back and forth. J.B. thought it was a terrific joke. When you’re five years old, I guess it is. It predictably drove Mother up the wall (and me too, though I’d never admit it), which of course added to J.B.’s pleasure. Mother frequently had to resort to a couple of tablespoons of her Lydia Pinkham’s. Sul Ross once asked Mother if I would also get to drink Lydia Pinkham’s when I grew up to be a lady, and she replied mysteriously, “I hope Callie won’t need it.”

Viola would sing alto with me in the kitchen to “Hard Times Come Again No More,” but she refused to listen to Mr. Scott Joplin.

“Music for savages,” she sniffed, which perplexed me.

IT CAME TIME for Miss Brown to present her piano students at a recital held every year at the Confederate Heroes Hall in Lockhart. For the first time, Miss Brown deemed me accomplished enough to be included on the program. To be truthful, it’s just that I couldn’t talk my way out of it for another year. Harry had performed for six years in a row and told me it was a snap. All you had to do was avoid staring into the gas footlights, since the light might blind you and you could pitch off the stage. Also, I had to memorize a piece of music. Miss Brown gave me Beethoven’s Ecossaise in G, which, strangely, had chords not unlike the Joplin rags. Oh, how the ruler twitched with aggravation. “Wrists down! Fingers up! Tempo, tempo, tempo!” Crack. I learned that piece in record time, and soon I was playing it in my sleep. It goes without saying I grew to hate it. My best friend, Lula Gates, had to memorize a piece that was twice as long as mine, but she was ten times a better player than I.

For the great occasion, Mother made me a new white broderie-anglaise dress with many layers of stiff, scratchy petticoats. This was no corset but it definitely ranked as a form of torture. I complained at length and clawed savagely at my legs. I also had a brand-new pair of pale cream kid boots. They took forever to close with the hook, but, once on, they were fine-looking, and I secretly admired them.