—by Betty Jane Wilson, society president
“Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast” declares 17th century poet William Congreve. A December 1873 music-loving visitor to Grasshopper Falls may have had cause to dispute the poet’s fantasy.
The story, according to the Kansas New Era, is that the gentleman was awakened early in the morning in his hotel room by the sweet strains of “Annie Laurie” from some brass instrument in the neighborhood.
The performer, although perhaps not a very artistic one, had a vigorous pair of lungs and great powers of endurance.
The stranger opened his window and listened to the soul-stirring strains for a couple of hours then went to breakfast after which he lit his cigar, sat by the window and drank in the incessant melody until the noon dinner hour.
After dinner the musician seemed to run out of tunes and settled down to “listen to the mocking bird.” The visitor listened for some time to the celebrated warbler’s trifling repetitions. It began to get stale, but from the brass lips of the instrument came an ever increasing demand to “listen, listen, listen” to this same old bird.
Why should he keep listening to a mocking bird he didn’t care a cent about when he wanted his supper? After supper he stepped out on the street thinking the musician had silenced his horn. Not so! The night air was rent with demand to “listen, listen, listen” to the mocking bird.
He pulled his hat over his ears and rushed to the suburbs. Just as the notes of the horn grew faint, from a loud tuned piano and the piercing throat of a young lady across the street came the shrill shrieks of a new demand to have the same old mocking bird attended to and if this were not enough, a brass band over Crosby and Randall’s Store suddenly split the air with a loud crash from its brazen throats hurling forth the terrible information that it too owned a mocking bird it wished to have listened to.
Booming from the deep trombones, a crashing swirl from the trumpets and a sledge hammer banging of the big drums, all seemed determined to have their birds attended to or perish in the attempt.
Our friend fled back to town to escape the overwhelming demands of the screeching voice and band’s beseeching voice and band’s beseeching to come and “listen to the mocking bird.”
He sought refuge in a dry goods store where he found one of the city’s merchants entertaining his canine friend, Snider, with the plaintive wail of a melancholy flute and in a piteous bewailing as if suffering from tight boots implored Snider to “listen to the mocking bird.”
This crushing the plaintive melody of the mocking bird through the disjointed spasms of a broken flute, made a howling waste of our friend’s affection for music. He rushed to the hotel, seized his carpet bag and left for the first train.
Maxine Hefty and Betty Jane Wilson will be the museum hosts Saturday, Aug. 21. The museum opens at 10 a.m.
No comments:
Post a Comment