p. 222 | The Missing Note by Ela Thomas

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jul 24, 1879

The Missing Note.

By Ela Thomas

To have a passionate longing, and never be able to gratify it; to be forever mocked by a vision, thin and elusive; to have pleasure doled out in drops that intensify instead of quenching thirst; to stretch out aching hands in vain, and utter a cry that is unavailing; to see a fullness and richness of life, and yet be forever doomed to stand outside. Such, Mabel Hart was wont to bitterly moan to herself, was the portion that had been given her.

Poor Mabel! It is hard when the strong passion that thrills and sways our being only beats and bruises us against the unyielding walls of the inevitable. And Mabel's passion was music, and she was the third of a hard-working carpenter's six children. Small chance for gratifying her heart's craving. It had always been her delight. When a child, she would sit for hours listening to her mother's old hymns and ballads. Church-going was her delight; no deacon was more faithful in attendance. Not that she cared much for prayers and sermons that she could hardly comprehend; it was the singing. The first strains of "Hamburg," "Corinth," "Coronation" (for they kept the good old tunes in Deerfield), would lift her into a sweet, ecstatic rapture, heart swelling, pulses thrilling with the rhythm. Well might she love the hymns and anthems of the village choir, for it was almost the only music she had to exist upon; only now and then was there a concert by local amateurs, or professionals of limited ability. But such were red-letter days to her; every air was treasured up to be reproduced on the melodian at home. The old melodian, that had been her mother's in her girlhood, and seen service at the hands of the older children, till now, when it had reached Mabel, it was asthmatic of bellows and rheumatic of keys, thin and sharp of tone. It was really wonderful, so every one said, how she contrived to draw so much melody from the old instrument; but Mabel possessed to a rare degree the gift of touch, her fingers hovered over the keys with true and loving interest. So infused, even to her very finger-tips, with melody, it was small wonder that life in the low, brown house, with its noisy boys and round of common household tasks, seemed dull and cramped. With what unutterable longing she would watch the smoke of the passing trains speeding away from the little hill-shut village to the great world of songs, of concerts, of operas! Oh! for one taste of that full, free life, to be rapt by the swell of organ and chant, to thrill under the spell of the queens of song, who in all the land had no more loyal devotee than Mabel, who had never heard the sound of their sweet tones. But those were dreams, beautiful for very vagueness. A real want lay with the sharp edge of its unfulfillment heavy on her heart. A piano, for the old melodian had been patched and repaired, till at last, when through sheer old age one key failed entirely, further effort was pronounced useless. Mr. Hart and his wife often sighed over their inability to give Mabel fuller musical advantages, but times were dull and growing boys hungry. "Wait patiently, dear," the father would say. "You shall have a piano just as soon as I can afford it." But patient waiting was an unknown quantity to Mabel. Her great desire blinded her alike to the struggles of father, and needs of the family. Day by day she sighed and repined over the hardness of her fortune, drew comparisons between her and every one more favored, and bounded the world by the narrow horizon of her own wishes, till the fresh young life that should have been in every sense the music of the home became its discord. A weary look gathered on her mother's face as she heard the plaint that "every one but she could have what they wanted," that she was ashamed to play away from home for lack of practice, and she would not play for any one at home, that was certain. That poor old melodian's missing note, what did it not do? When Mr. Hart came home tired at night, it refused him his favorite songs, dismissed the children from their evening practice, and curtly told friends that "nothing would sound fit to be heard."

Among the most frequent visitors was "Friend" Milton, an old Quaker lady, loved by all not less for her kindliness of heart than the sweet, serene cheerfulness, as characteristic of her sect as the drab dress, falling in soft, straight folds, the snowy muslin inside kerchief, and the plain, close cap, that, crowning the smooth, silvery hair, shaded eyes as keen as they were kindly. Mabel's growing discontent and fretfulness had not escaped her notice. More than once her needles had clicked faster for some sharp word or sullen look, but she said nothing, till one day, being alone in the room when Mabel threw aside some new music she had been trying, with an angry exclamation, she laid down her knitting with, "My dear, thee knows we make little account of worldly music; still, I am sorry thy instrument troubles thee, but more grieved that the note of a peaceful heart and quiet spirit is lacking in thee, for the want of which thee is forgetting all thy blessings of life and health and friends, and making thyself and thy home wretched." And Friend Milton, having obeyed the "leading of the inward spirit" to "bear testimony," returned to her placid knitting.

As for Mabel, her face flushed with mingled anger and mortification. But, after all, hers was a fine, earnest nature, and the simple words had been a sharp probe. She sought her own room and knelt down by the open window. "Making thyself and thy home wretched," rang in her ears. Was it indeed true, she asked herself, that her life-bell had become a jarring discord? Outside, the May sunshine through the early green of the trees, flecked the fresh sward and sweet flower faces clustering below. A pair of robins were chirping in a maple beside her window. But a storm the night before had shaken down their completeness, and the orchard grass was white with blossom petals beaten down. She had noted before the birds at their work of building another nest, and the apple trees shorn of their fragrant beauty; but now a new light came to her, and through it she read a hitherto hidden lesson of sweet endurance and cheerful patience. The robin was chirping over his task, and for those scattered blossoms she knew golden fruit would gather the rich juices of sun and earth. Simple instinct, inanimate nature, accepted disappointment and loss, and should she, intelligent, Christian, as she had thought, rebel? The world was full of melody, full brooks could be heard rippling, winds were whispering, and every tree was vocal with sweet bird songs. Should she alone be out of harmony? Long she knelt at that window, and struggled with the tumult of feeling, that left her eyes wet and her heart sore, for life never looked drearer than that day. Cramped, fettered, bound to a tread-mill round of distasteful duties, shut from all delight—must, could she be patient, cheerful, joyful? But hers was a brave, spirit; true enough to pierce through the tissue of selfish desire, brave enough, having seen the right, to give herself to walk therein, though no eyes save the bright ones of the robins saw the tears it cost, and not even they heard the prayer for daily help for daily need.

And was it all easy, then? By no means. There were hasty words to be strangled, repining thoughts to be hushed, vain wishes to be forbidden entrance. Many a time she faltered, weary, almost discouraged; but the brooding robin in her downy nest, the swelling orchard fruit, and, above all, Friend Milton's cheery, "Thee must not weary in well-doing," were an elixir of courage. Gradually, so imperceptibly they hardly knew when, a new atmosphere became felt in the house. The mother found her tasks lightened by cordial interest and sympathy; the boys to find home more pleasant than outside attractions, and some of the careworn lines faded from the father's face.

So the summer and autumn passed; the robins' fledglings had grown strong, and left the old nest in the maples for Southern orange groves; the apples, golden and russet, were gathered into winter's store. It was Mabel's eighteenth birthday, a dull day in November. Friend Milton had dropped in with her knitting, and Mabel sat humming little snatches of song over her long seam, when with noisy jolting a loaded dray drew up at the door. A great thrill of mingled wonder and hope and fear flushed Mabel's face as the cumbersome package was lifted off, and she turned to her mother for explanation, only to meet the smiling answer, "Wait and see." The suspense, however, was not long till the cover lifted off revealed the polished rosewood case within.

"There, Mabel," said her mother, who had entered. "I always said you should have a piano as soon as I could afford it. I did not say anything, for fear I could not get it this year; but that job of Squire Lewes's brought me just enough."

The fine instrument was soon in position, and, sitting down in the very place where she had so often thrummed the old melodian, Mabel swept the shining keys with a touch tremulous with the excitement of joy.

"Is it not perfect?" she cried. "Every chord so pure and clear. I never dreamed to have so fine a one. No more discords or missing notes."

"Yes," said Friend Milton, in a tone that no one else heard in the happy tumult, "but the note thee hast found in thy heart is the sweetest music of all."

—Ela Thomas, in Christian at Work.