Christmas at the Boston Music Hall
The
story that follows takes place in Boston at the turn of the century - from the
1800s to the 1900s. The setting is the
affluent area of the Boston Music Hall on Winter Street. The grand theater was home to the world
famous Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Later,
when the symphony moved to a new building, the venue became one of America’s
finest Vaudeville Theaters. In 1915, It was converted to a motion picture house called the Orpheum
Theater. In the 2000’s the ancient hall is
still in existence and continues to offer a wide variety of live
entertainments.
In
our tale, written by an unheralded author that I call “Ma Lane”, a group of
proper and wealthy Beacon Hill college students are on their way to a monumental
performance of the orchestra featuring the premier of a new work by the
recently deceased Johannes Brahms.
Brahms
had been a close friend of the Boston conductor, George Henschel. By 1900
Brahms’ work was so highly valued that he was called one of the three ‘B’s’ –
Beethoven, Brahms, and Bach.
So
it was no wonder that our rich young friends were in a hurry to get to the
Music Hall………
A
Christmas Matinee
By Ma Lane
It
was the day before Christmas just before 1900. Snow was falling heavily in the
streets of Boston, but the crowd of shoppers seemed undiminished. As the storm
increased, groups gathered at the corners and in sheltering doorways to wait
for belated cars; but the holiday cheer was in the air, and there was no
grumbling. Mothers dragging tired children through the slush of the streets; pretty
girls hurrying home for the holidays; here and there a harassed-looking man
with perhaps a single package which he had taken a whole morning to select—all
had the same spirit of tolerant good-humor.
“School
Street! School Street!” called the conductor of an electric car. A group of
young people at the farther end of the car started to their feet. One of them,
a young man wearing a heavy fur-trimmed coat, addressed the conductor angrily.
Boston Music Hall in 1900, just before it was converted to
a Vaudeville Theater. The building is
still in use in the 2000s; now known as the Orpheum Theater.
“Oh,
never mind, Frank!” one of the girls interposed. “We ought to have been looking
out ourselves! Six of us, and we went by without a thought! It is all Mrs.
Tirrell’s fault! She shouldn’t have been so entertaining!”
The
young matron dimpled and blushed. “That’s charming of you, Maidie,” she said,
gathering up her silk skirts as she prepared to step down into the pond before
her. “The compliment makes up for the blame. But how it snows!”
“It
doesn’t matter. We all have rubber boots on,” returned Maidie Williams,
undisturbed.
“Fares,
please!” said the conductor stolidly.
Frank
Armstrong thrust his gloved hand deep into his pocket with angry vehemence.
“There’s your money,” he said, “and be quick about the change, will you? We’ve
lost time enough!”
The
man counted out the change with stiff, red fingers, closed his lips firmly as
if to keep back an obvious rejoinder, rang up the six fares with careful
accuracy, and gave the signal to go ahead. The car went on into the drifting
storm.
Armstrong
laughed shortly as he rapidly counted the bits of silver lying in his open
palm. He turned instinctively, but two or three cars were already between him
and the one he was looking for.
“The
fellow must be an imbecile,” he said, rejoining the group on the crossing.
“He’s given me back a dollar and twenty cents, and I handed him a dollar bill.”
“Oh,
can’t you stop him?” cried Maidie Williams, with a backward step into the wet
street.
The
Harvard junior, who was carrying her umbrella, protested: “What’s the use. Miss
Williams? He’ll make it up before he gets to Scollay Square, you may be sure.
Those chaps don’t lose anything. Why, the other day, I gave one a quarter and
he went off as cool as you please.
‘Where’s my change?’ said I. ‘You gave me a nickel,’ said he. And there
wasn’t anybody to swear that I didn’t except myself, and I didn’t count.”
“But
that doesn’t make any difference,” insisted the girl warmly. “Because one conductor was dishonest, we
needn’t be. I beg your pardon, Frank, but it does seem to me just stealing.”
“Oh,
come along!” said her cousin, with an easy laugh. “I guess the West End
Corporation won’t go without their dinners to-morrow. Here, Maidie, here’s the
ill-gotten fifty cents. I think you ought to treat us all after the concert;
still, I won’t urge you. I wash my hands of all responsibility. But I do wish
you hadn’t such an unpleasant conscience.”
Maidie
flushed under the sting of his rudeness, but she went on quietly with the rest.
It was evident that any attempt to overtake the car was out of the question.
“Did
you notice his number, Frank?” she asked, suddenly.
“No,
I never thought of it” said Frank, stopping short. “However, I probably
shouldn’t make any complaint if I had. I shall forget all about it tomorrow. I
find it’s never safe to let the sun go down on my wrath. It’s very likely not
to be there the next day.”
“I
wasn’t thinking of making a complaint,” said Maidie; but the two young men were
enjoying the small joke too much to notice what she said.
The
great doorway of Music Hall was just ahead. In a moment the party were within
its friendly shelter, stamping off the snow. The girls were adjusting veils and
hats with adroit feminine touches; the pretty chaperon was beaming approval
upon them, and the young men were taking off their wet overcoats, when Maidie
turned again in sudden desperation.
“Mr.
Harris,” she said, rather faintly, for she did not like to make herself
disagreeable, “do you suppose that car comes right back from Scollay Square?”
“What
car?” asked Walter Harris, blankly. “Oh, the one we came in? Yes, I suppose it
does. They’re running all the time, anyway. Why, you are not sick, are you,
Miss Williams?”
There
was genuine concern in his tone. This girl, with her sweet, vibrant voice, her
clear gray eyes, seemed very charming to him. She wasn’t beautiful, perhaps,
but she was the kind of girl he liked. There was a steady earnestness in the
gray eyes that made him think of his mother.
“No,”
said Maidie, slowly. “I’m all right, thank you. But I wish I
could
find that man again. I know sometimes they have to make it up if
their
accounts are wrong, and I couldn’t—we couldn’t feel very
comfortable—“
Frank
Armstrong interrupted her. “Maidie,” he said, with the studied calmness with
which one speaks to an unreasonable child, “you are perfectly absurd. Here it
is within five minutes of the time for the concert to begin. It is impossible
to tell when that car is coming back. You are making us all very uncomfortable.
Mrs. Tirrell, won’t you please tell her not to spoil our afternoon?”
“I
think he’s right, Maidie,” said Mrs. Tirrell. “It’s very nice of you to feel so
sorry for the poor man, but he really was very careless. It was all his own
fault. And just think how far he made us walk! My feet are quite damp. We ought
to go in directly or we shall all take cold, and I’m sure you wouldn’t like that,
my dear.”
She
led the way as she spoke, the two girls and young Armstrong following. Maidie
hesitated. It was so easy to go in, to forget everything in the light and
warmth and excitement.
“No,”
said she, very firmly, and as much to herself as to the young man who stood
waiting for her. “I must go back and try to make it right.
I’m
so sorry, Mr. Harris, but if you will tell them—“
“Why,
I’m going with you, of course” said the young fellow, impulsively. “If I’d only
looked once at the man I’d go alone, but I shouldn’t know him from Adam.”
Maidie
laughed. “Oh, I don’t want to lose the whole concert, Mr. Harris, and Frank, has all the tickets. You
must go after them and try to make my peace. I’ll come just as soon as I can.
Don’t wait for me, please. If you’ll come and look for me here the first
number, and not let them scold me too much—“ She ended with an imploring little
catch in her breath that was almost a sob.
“They
won’t say a word, Miss Williams!” cried Walter Harris, with honest admiration
in his eyes.
But
she was gone already, and conscious that further delay was only making matters
worse, he went on into the hall.
Meanwhile,
the car swung heavily along the wet rails on its way to the turning-point. It
was nearly empty now. An old gentleman and his nurse were the only occupants.
Jim Stevens, the conductor, had stepped inside the car.
“Too
bad I forgot those young people wanted to get off at Music Hall,” he was
thinking to himself. “I don’t see how I came to do it. That chap looked as if
he wanted to complain of me, and I don’t know as I blame him. I’d have said I
was sorry if he hadn’t been so sharp with his tongue. I hope he won’t complain
just now. ‘Twould be a pretty bad time for me to get into trouble, with Mary
and the baby both sick. I’m too sleepy to be good for much, that’s a fact.
Sitting up three nights running takes hold of a fellow somehow when he’s at
work all day. The rent’s paid, that’s one thing, if it hasn’t left me but half
a dollar to my name. Hullo!” He was struck by a sudden distinct recollection of
the coins he had returned. “Why, I gave him fifty cents too much!”
He
glanced up at the dial which indicated the fares and began to count the change
in his pocket. He knew exactly how much money he had had at the beginning of
the trip. He counted carefully. Then he plunged his hand into the heavy canvas
pocket of his coat. Perhaps he had half a dollar there. No, it was empty!
He
faced the fact reluctantly. Fifty cents short, ten fares! Gone into the pocket
of the young gentleman with the fur collar! The conductor’s hand shook as he
put the money back in his pocket. It meant—what did it mean? He drew a long
breath.
Christmas
Eve! A dark dreary little room upstairs in a noisy tenement house. A pale, thin
woman on a shabby lounge vainly trying to quiet a fretful child. The child is
thin and pale, too, with a hard, racking cough. There is a small fire in the
stove, a very small fire; coal is so high. The medicine stands on the shelf.
“Medicine won’t do much good,” the doctor had said; “he needs beef and cream.”
Jim’s
heart sank at the thought. He could almost hear the baby asking;
“Isn’t
papa coming soon? Isn’t he, mamma?”
“Poor
little kid!” Jim said, softly, under his breath. “And I won’t have a thing to
take home to him; nor Mary’s violets, either. It’ll be the first Christmas that
ever happened. I suppose that chap would think it was ridiculous for me to be
buying violets. He wouldn’t understand what the flowers mean to Mary. Perhaps
he didn’t notice I gave him too much. That kind don’t know how much they have.
They just pull it out as if it was newspaper.”
The
conductor went out into the snow to help the nurse, who was assisting the old
gentleman to the ground. Then the car swung on again. Jim turned up the collar of his coat about
his ears and stamped his feet. There was the florist’s shop where he had meant
to buy the violets, and the toy-shop was just around the corner.
A
thought flashed across his tired brain. “Plenty of men would do it; they do it
every day. Nobody ever would be the poorer for it. This car will be crowded
going home. I needn’t ring in every fare; nobody could tell. But Mary! She
wouldn’t touch those violets if she knew. And she’d know. I’d have to tell her.
I couldn’t keep it from her, she’s that quick.”
He
jumped off to adjust the trolley with a curious sense of unreality. It couldn’t be that he was really going home
this Christmas Eve with empty hands. Well, they must all suffer together for
his carelessness. It was his own fault,
but it was hard. And he was so tired!
To
his amazement he found his eyes were blurred as be watched the people crowding
into the car. What? Was he going to cry like a baby—he, a great burly man of
thirty years?
“It’s
no use,” he thought. “I couldn’t do it. The first time I gave Mary violets was
the night she said she’d marry me. I told her then I’d do my best to make her
proud of me. I guess she wouldn’t be very proud of a man who could cheat. She’d
rather starve than have a ribbon she couldn’t pay for.”
He
rang up a dozen fares with a steady hand. The temptation was over. Six more strokes—then nine without a falter.
He even imagined the bell rang more distinctly than usual, even encouragingly.
The car stopped. Jim flung the door open
with a triumphant sweep of his arm. He felt ready to face the world. But the
baby—his arm dropped. It was hard.
He
turned to help the young girl who was waiting at the step. Through the whirling
snow he saw her eager face, with a quick recognition lighting the steady eyes,
and wondered dimly, as he stood with his hand on the signal-strap, where he
could have seen her before.
He
knew immediately.
“There
was a mistake,” she said, with a shy tremor in her voice. “You gave us too much
change and here it is.” She held out to Jim the piece of silver which had given
him such an unhappy quarter of an hour.
He
took it like one dazed. Would the young lady think he was crazy to
care
so much about so small a coin? He must say something. “Thank you, miss,” he
stammered as well as he could. “You see, I thought it was gone—and there’s the
baby—and it’s Christmas Eve—and my wife’s sick—and you can’t understand—“
It
certainly was not remarkable that she couldn’t.
“But
I do,” she said, simply. “I was afraid of that. And I thought perhaps there was
a baby, so I brought my Christmas present for her,” and something else dropped
into Jim’s cold hand.
“What
you waiting for?” shouted the motorman from the front platform.
The
girl had disappeared in the snow.
Jim
rang the bell to go ahead, and gazed again at the two shining half dollars in
his hand.
“I
didn’t have a chance to tell her,” he explained to his wife late in the
evening, as he sat in a tiny rocking-chair several sizes too small for him,
“that the baby wasn’t a her at all, though if I thought he’d grow up into such
a lovely one as she is, I don’t know but I almost wish he was.”
“Poor
Jim!” said Mary, with a little laugh as she put up her hand to stroke his rough
cheek. “I guess you’re tired.”
“And
I should say,” he added, stretching out his long legs toward the few red sparks
in the bottom of the grate, “I should say she had tears in her eyes, too, but I
was that near crying myself I couldn’t be sure.”
The
little room was sweet with the odor of English violets. Asleep in the bed lay
the boy, a toy horse clasped close to his breast.
“Well,
Miss Williams,” said Walter Harris, as he sprang to meet a snow-covered figure
coming swiftly along the sidewalk. “I can see that you found him. You’ve lost
the first number, but the Boston Symphony Orchestra won’t scold you—not this
time.”
The
girl turned a radiant face upon him. “Thank you,” she said, shaking the snowy
crystals from her skirt. “I don’t care now if they do. I should have lost more
than that if I had stayed.”
The End
No comments:
Post a Comment