A Distant Music

by BJ Hoff

  To Maggie’s surprise—and great relief—his tone, while stern, no longer sounded angry. Did he mean to hear her out, then, instead of giving her a blistering “piece of his mind,” as he was wont to do when riled?

  Her hopes lifted a bit, and she took a deep breath. Perhaps, if she could make him understand just how desperate the situation was with Mr. Stuart, he might relent.

  She chose her words with great care, telling him about the students’ concern for Mr. Stuart. How he had changed, how he looked to be failing, how the loss of his treasured flute seemed to have broken something inside him and was draining the very life from him.

  As she spoke, her da slipped quietly onto the chair across from her. He made no attempt to interrupt, but instead he sat ever so still as she went on.

  Maggie explained that they had conducted a thorough search for the missing flute, but despite their best efforts they had turned up nothing except for chilblains and briar scratches. She also, with some reluctance, admitted to being the one who had initiated the idea for a collection.

  “Don’t you see, Da,” she fairly pleaded as she finished her account, “we mustn’t lose Mr. Stuart. We need him. All of us need him.”

  Da appeared to be thinking. For a long time he simply sat in silence, staring at his hands. Finally, he gave a heavy sigh and looked up. “Maggie, Maggie,” he said, shaking his head. “I know you think me a hard man.”

  He waved away her attempt to protest. “You think me hard, and perhaps I am. But in this case, I’d be the first to agree that your Mr. Stuart deserves far better than he got. He is known to be a good man and a fine schoolmaster, and he is to be commended for his hard work with you and the other children. ’Tis a shame, a sorry shame, what was done to him, and may God have mercy on the black soul of the one who robbed the man. But don’t you understand, girl?”

  Maggie marveled at the softening of her father’s face. To see him like this was such a rare thing that it was unnerving, to say the least.

  “The poor man was not well even before this despicable theft, lass. Why, it’s clear to everyone with eyes in their head that your Mr. Stuart is in very poor health, and he has been for some time.”

  Maggie flinched, wanting to argue the point even as something cold breathed through her at his words.

  As if he had read her thoughts, Da raised a hand to silence her. “Listen to me, now, Maggie. Your teacher was poorly when he first came to us, and he has shown signs of failing ever since, though to give the man his due, he puts on a brave show of things. But he is exceedingly ill, lass. And the time has come for you and the other children to accept what cannot be changed. Even if by some miracle—and a miracle is what it would take—you managed to collect money enough to replace his stolen flute, I doubt the poor man would have the strength or the breath to play it.”

  Maggie fought to reject what he was saying, but she floundered as her own doubts began to gnaw at her.

  Watching her father, Maggie saw that he no longer looked cross. Not a bit. To the contrary, the expression that had settled over his strong features was grave indeed.

  “Ah, Maggie,” he said now, his voice uncommonly gentle, “you must face things as they are, lass. There is no more music in the schoolmaster. Mr. Stuart is in a bad way. A dozen silver flutes wouldn’t save the man now.”

  The tears Maggie had been choking back finally escaped. She heaved a sob and made to rise from her chair. But her father reached across the table to stop her. “Now, that’s the truth of it, Maggie, and you must accept it for once and for all.”

  He held on to her hand, studied her, and then he added, “Even so, girl, your heart is right to want to help, and if I had an extra coin to spare, I would give it to you here and now. But there is naught, Maggie, don’t you see? There is not a bit of money to spare. There never is. We’re a fine, big family, and it takes everything we can earn just to make ends meet. I cannot—I will not—take food from my children’s mouths to buy a flute for a dying man. A father cannot do such a thing, girl, and you must not ask it of me again.”

  Maggie knew he spoke the truth as he saw it. And hadn’t she known all along the response she should expect? But hadn’t she also heard her mother say, and say it often, that on occasion God had been known to do wondrous things entirely? She had allowed herself to hope that this would be one of those occasions.

  Da patted her hand then, as if to comfort her. At least he had been kind and had not mocked her. Maggie couldn’t remember a time when he had been so careful with her, so gentle with her feelings.

  Because of this rare display of tenderness, she, too, softened. And because she somehow sensed that he was waiting for a word from her, she managed to tell him that she understood. “I expect what you say is true, Da. But I thank you for hearing me out.”

  He studied her for a moment before looking away. “Well…that’s fine, then. That’s fine.”

  He paused, and when he spoke again his tone returned to its more familiar gruffness. “Mind, if you can find an odd job or two in addition to your work for the Carlee ladies, you’re free to use whatever you earn for your collection. But you’re not to be neglecting your schoolwork nor your chores here at home.”

  As Maggie met her father’s gaze, she was suddenly struck by the oddest feeling that he was the one who needed comforting, not herself. But Da was not a man to admit his feelings, and since Maggie could think of nothing more to say, she got up, said goodnight, and turned to leave the room.

  She glanced back at Da and almost thought she saw a glimpse of the same sorrowful expression in his eyes that she had seen of late in Mr. Stuart’s.

  Four

  A Jar of Wishes

  Wish for a little or wish for a lot,

  But always give thanks for the good things you’ve got.

  The Wee Book of Irish Wisdom

  Long after Maggie had gone, Matthew sat staring after her, thinking. Exhaustion dug deep into his bones, and his bad arm ached with a vengeance.

  They don’t know, he thought, they haven’t an inkling how hard it is simply to survive.

  Oh, he chided them often enough that they mustn’t be wasteful, that there was no money for foolishness, nothing for “extras.” The girls had no choice but to wear each other’s hand-me-downs, and even wee Ray was clothed in the baby dresses and gowns his older sisters had once worn. Their house—the company’s house—was furnished with odds and ends of furniture, none of which matched. Their food was simple fare: potatoes and beans and an occasional rasher of bacon or a chicken in the pot.

  He raked a hand down his beard, and then he extended his arms in front of him and sat staring at his hands. The nails and creases of his knuckles were smudged with coal dust that would never completely wash away, his fingers thick and somewhat bent from years of picking slate or wielding a shovel.

  Kate understood, of course. She knew as well as he that they lived from one payday to the next with only the smallest wad put by and with so much on tick at the store that they were never paid up in full. But even Kate didn’t know that he lived in fear of some fool accident that could put him down for weeks or even longer, and then what would they do?

  The other men never came out and said so, but Matthew knew they pitied him, having a household of women to support with the only male child still a wee tyke. Had his offspring been sons, they’d have been working the mines with him by now, adding their wages to his own.

  That thought alone banished any regret he might have had for his lack of sons. He would not wish a life in the mines for any one of his children, and that was the truth. Moreover, he would do everything in his power to make certain his only son never had to go underground to make a living.

  No doubt he was, if not entirely alone, at least one of very few to think this way. Most of the other men held that the more sons they had, the better, and they drummed it into the young boys’ heads that there was no more noble or manly work. Many of the lads could scarcely wait to follow their das into the mines.<
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  While Matthew prided himself on a good day’s work, a job well done, he still hoped for something better for his boy. An easier life, a life of education and opportunity.

  For himself, he had wanted nothing so much as a piece of his own land to farm. It seemed to him that if ever there was an occupation a man could wear like a badge of honor, it would be to farm the land.

  But that was a young man’s dream, a dream that was dying fast, for he was no longer young—and there was no land of his own in sight, not even a possibility.

  It would seem that his Maker had consigned him to the mines for all time. And so long as he could provide for his family, it was a good enough life, he supposed. True, there were days when he groaned at the blast of the breaker whistle when it sounded long before dawn, dreaded the long trek down the road in the dark, knowing he would not see daylight again until the next Sunday came round.

  But more than the long hours spent in the gloomy darkness several hundred feet belowground, and more than the choking dust and smoke and constant backache, what he disliked most about his job was that, as a foreman, he was responsible for the health and safety of the rest of the men. And boys. Boys who, for the most part, disdained an education. Boys who couldn’t wait to go into the mines and stay there for the rest of their lives. The majority put their schooling behind them by the time they were nine or ten years of age, if not sooner.

  Some of the lads—the breaker boys, especially—were little more than babes. Taddy Maguire and the little Pippino boy, neither no more than eight or nine, had been in the breakers for a good six months by now.

  It was all too easy for families to get around the law that prohibited children under twelve from working the mines. A father would simply fill in the required age, pay the certificate fee, and his son was from that moment “employed” by the company.

  Hard as it was to look after the safety of grown men, it was nigh impossible to protect the young’uns, who were often sleepy and frightened and careless.

  Yet Matthew knew himself to be a good foreman, in part, he supposed, because he held few of the resident fears and superstitions common to many who worked belowground. He didn’t spook easily, and he was big enough to haul a man out of trouble when need be.

  The job had its advantages. He’d rather be the one doing the looking after than the one being looked after, and that was the truth. At least he was sober when he was on the job, and that was more than could be said for some of the men. And the foreman’s wage had helped him to keep Kate and the children out of one of those “doublehouses,” where the rooms were small as privies and the walls between the two families were paper-thin.

  He scarcely noticed when Kate returned to the kitchen, so deep was he into his own thoughts. He looked up, and she rested a hand on his shoulder for a moment before proceeding to clear the table. When Matthew rose to help her, she shook her head.

  “Sit and talk to me while the children are quiet.”

  Matthew watched her, taking in her easy, fluid movements. She was still slender as a girl, her waist not much thicker than when they’d wed nineteen years past. As always, her long reddish-blond hair—Kate’s sister, Vivienne, called it “strawberry blond”—was fastened neatly at the nape of her neck with a piece of ribbon, a few strands of curl falling softly over her ears.

  She was small, Kate was, a mere wisp of a woman. The top of her head scarcely reached his shoulder, and her hands were almost as dainty as a child’s. But those soft blue eyes of hers could catch fire quickly enough when she was riled, all right, and her tongue was ready with a quick scalding if one of the girls—or himself—tried her temper past the boiling point.

  As if she’d felt him watching her, she turned, and Matthew motioned her to him. She gave him a look but ventured over.

  “The children will be wanting the table to do their lessons,” she said.

  “The children can wait a bit.” He pulled her down onto his lap. “Besides, other than Maggie, when have those girls ever been in a hurry to do their schoolwork?”

  Kate studied him, smoothing his forehead with her hand, much as she might have touched one of the children. “You look tired.”

  “A bit,” he said, tracing the band of freckles over her nose with one finger and then running a hand down her back. She was so slight, so slender, that for a moment he felt chilled. There wasn’t enough of her to withstand a strong wind.

  “Well, at least you can rest after church on Sunday,” she said, still watching him.

  He shook his head. “The roof needs patching before we get deeper into winter, and I need daylight to do it.”

  “Oh, Matthew, you’re worn out. Can’t it wait?”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Winter’s almost here, Kate. That roof won’t take another downpour, much less a heavy snow. Besides, it won’t be that bad of a job. Brian Scully offered to give me a hand.”

  They sat in silence for another moment. Finally she said, “Is Maggie in a pout?”

  Matthew shook his head. “She’s disappointed, of course, but she took it well enough.”

  “She’s so worried for Mr. Stuart. She has a terrible crush on him, you know. As do the other two.”

  “The girl is twelve years old!” he sputtered. “And the other two not much more.”

  Kate shrugged. “Eva Grace is fifteen, Matthew—and Nell Frances will be fourteen in two months. It’s hardly uncommon for a young girl to fancy herself in love with the schoolmaster. It happens all the time.”

  Again he arched an eyebrow. “Did it happen with you, then?”

  “I didn’t go to school, remember? You were the only teacher I ever had. And doesn’t that just answer your question? It seems I did fall in love with my teacher.”

  It was little enough he’d been able to teach her, other than how to read and do simple sums. In other words, he’d taught her all he himself had known.

  He sighed. “Our girls are bright, Kate. Especially Maggie. I want them all to have a proper schooling, not like us.”

  She nodded. “So do I, though I fear Eva Grace will trade the books for a husband at first chance.”

  Matthew pulled back a little and looked at her. “Not if I have anything to say about it, she won’t.”

  She laughed softly. “If you have anything to say about it, Matthew MacAuley, none of our girls will take a husband until they’re old and worn out.”

  “Aye, and that would be soon enough.”

  Again, her gaze went over him. She was still smiling as she framed his face between her hands. “You’re a good father, Matthew,” she said softly. “A good father. A good husband. A good man.”

  He felt his face heat at her words, but he was pleased all the same. Kate wasn’t a woman to offer praise lightly.

  She always seemed to know the right word to say, the right thing to do, to lift his spirits. Even when he was unaware that a lifting was needed.

  “I should finish in here,” she said, getting up before he could stop her. “It will be bedtime before we know it, and the girls still haven’t done their schoolwork.”

  Matthew stretched and got to his feet. “I’ll give Sadie her supper and bring in some more kindling.”

  He went to stand beside his wife at the sink, scooping up some of the leftover potatoes and pouring a bit of bacon grease over them.

  “And you always insist that I’m the one after spoiling the dog,” Kate remarked, eyeing the tin of greasy potatoes.

  Matthew shrugged. “The dog makes herself useful. She deserves to eat.”

  He saw her smile to herself and elbowed her.

  “Stop it now,” she fussed. “Go and call the girls.”

  He did fancy Kate’s smile. After all these years, he still worked for it, still felt the warmth of it. At times, he struggled to tell her as much but could never find the words to say what he felt without making himself out to be a great fool.

  Aye, he prized her smile, all right, so long as she didn’t actually laugh at him.

  Not
that she would. Not Kate. She was careful of everyone’s feelings, including his own. Might be she was too careful at times, especially with the girls. She tended to be soft with them, she did.

  Perhaps because no one had ever been soft with her. No one except him, she’d told him not long after they were wed. She had never heard soft words, gentle words, from anyone but him.

  That would have been reason enough by itself to treat her with care. But in truth, Kate was a woman with whom a man wanted to be gentle, a woman who should never be treated with anything but tenderness.

  Faith, but he was a fortunate man. Even with three bickering daughters who now came bearing down on them in the kitchen, shoving and spatting with each other, he knew himself to be a man blessed.

  Though it did take a bit of reminding every now and then.

  Within a few days, Maggie had made an extra fifty cents sweeping up the company store two afternoons after school and another half-dollar ironing clothes for the Carlee sisters.

  Feeling exceedingly virtuous, she’d given twenty-five cents to her mother from her extra earnings and then dropped the remainder in the collection jar, with Lily Woodbridge looking on closely.

  Naturally, Lily had made a great show of things when her father, Dr. Woodbridge, contributed ten whole dollars. But for once Maggie hadn’t minded Lily’s uppity airs. She was too grateful to see the collection growing as it was.

  She had been somewhat surprised—and disappointed—when Kenny Tallman admitted that his father had scarcely listened to his explanation about the collection, only to dismiss it as “so much nonsense.” He had allowed Kenny only one dollar for the collection, and that grudgingly, from the sound of it. Maggie could understand her father’s refusal to give what they didn’t have, but everyone knew that Judson Tallman, as the mine superintendent, could afford more than a dollar.

  Even so, Maggie couldn’t help but be encouraged. In less than a week they had collected almost twenty dollars. Of course, they still had a long way to go. Twenty dollars probably wasn’t even close to what they needed.