I only know two tunes.
One is Yankee Doodle.
The other isn’t.
Ulysses S. Grant and Lynn Ruth


When I was a small child, I used to walk by an old fashioned yellow frame house on the corner of Melrose and Fulton with a huge sign:

PIANO & VIOLIN LESSONS
REASONABLE
MILDRED HARDING

And that would remind me of how much I ached to learn to play the piano.

I have loved music since the day I was born, although I exhibited no discernible talent for producing it. I sang lustily with my mother but the result seemed more like a bee droning in a minor key than the lilting tune my mother was rendering beside me. My mother thought that perhaps if I didn’t use my VOICE I would be a bit more successful at producing palatable sound so when I was eight years old, she bought me a Chickering piano and arranged for piano lessons with Mildred Harding every Monday after school, for $5.00 a lesson.

I was so excited by this combination of my very own piano and lessons to go with it that I actually counted minutes until I could meet Mrs. Harding and begin to play. My mother went with me to the yellow house a Friday afternoon. I held Mama’s hand tightly as we climbed the endless steps to the Harding front porch and read the sign placed above the bell.

DO NOT RING THIS BELL
IT WILL DISTURB MR. HARDING

My mother’s finger was poised over the bell but dropped to her side as she read the warning posted there. “I guess I’d better just tap on the door, Lynn Ruth,” she whispered.

“Why are you whispering?” I whispered back.

“I don’t want to disturb Mr. Harding,” said my mother.

She tapped lightly on the door and then paused again. There in the middle of the door was another sign.

SHHHHHH! THIS DOOR IS OPEN
STEP SOFTLY OR YOU WILL DISTURB MR. HARDING.

We pushed open the door and tip toed into the parlor. We sat down carefully and waited until the violin student in the living room finished his arpeggio and Mrs. Harding and the young virtuoso appeared in the hall. “Very nice, Nathan,” said Mrs. Harding. “Now I want you to practice your glissandos this week. You need to do them with feeling for our recital. Can you manage that, dear?”

Nathan grabbed his jacket and his violin and galloped to the front hall. ”DON’T SLAM THAT DOOR!” hissed Mrs. Harding.

I clutched my Mother’s arm. “Mr. Harding must really be sick!” I whispered. “I wonder if he is going to die pretty soon?”

“Hush,” said my mother and she smiled at Mrs. Harding. “This is Lynn Ruth,” she said. “She loves music and is very anxious to learn to play the piano…but her sense of melody is a bit deficient.”

Mrs. Harding was a tall woman with marcelled waves framing her unsmiling face. She wore very thick glasses and the light bounced back and forth from one lens to the other. “If you practice 60 minutes every day, Lynn Ruth, you will be an accomplished pianist before you are ten!” she said.

I was overjoyed. “Oh, I will, Mrs. Harding! “ I breathed. “I will!”

“WHISPER!” admonished Mrs. Harding and she led us into the east parlor. There were two gigantic pianos in a large empty room. “We will learn our music here,” she said to my mother. “In June, Lynn Ruth will perform in our summer recital. Would you like that , Lynn Ruth?”

“Won’t all that music disturb Mr. Harding?” I whispered.

Mrs. Harding shook her head. “I send him to The Home for the afternoon.”

Now I was really confused. “Isn’t THIS his home?” I asked.

“Usually,” said Mrs. Harding. “Now I am going to teach you the first five notes of the scale and show you how they are written for you to read. On Monday, I expect you to play them for me with a lovely light touch.”

“Yes, Mrs. Harding,” I said.

And so my lessons were launched. Every Monday after a pungent lunch of liver and onions to bolster the iron in my blood, I would tip toe up the steps of Mrs. Harding’s porch, gently push open the door and sit down at the piano near the window to play my lesson. Mrs. Harding, her handkerchief over her nose would sit on the farthest edge of the piano bench nearest the door and gasp corrections in my fingering and presentation.

Before I knew it, June had arrived and the day of the recital was at hand. “I always put one star student first on the program to get everyone in a receptive mood,” Mrs. Harding explained. “And finish with another star pupil at the end so the audience leaves with a pleasant feeling about music.”

“Yes, Mrs. Harding,“ I said.

“You have done such a very fine job, Lynn Ruth, that I am going to have you begin our program with The Rustic Dance and use that very nice duet you practiced with Eleanor Brauer as our finale. Please invite your parents.”

“Will Mr. Harding have to go to The Home when we give our performance?” I asked. “I would love to invite him to hear me play. Maybe it will make him feel better.”

“Why how sweet, Lynn Ruth!” said Mrs. Harding and she smiled the first smile I had ever seen on her face. “I’ll ask him.”

She paused, covered her nose with a handkerchief and took a step back from me. ”Thank goodness the recital isn’t on Monday or Eleanor wouldn’t last five measures. What does your mother usually feed you for Sunday lunch?”

“Corned Beef and dill pickles,” I said.

“POOR Eleanor!”

I was puzzled. “Eleanor is coming over for lunch that day,” I said.

”I’ll have to get some large floor fans,” said Mrs. Harding. “They’re having sale at Sears.”

Recital Sunday was sunny and very hot. Eleanor ‘s daddy dropped her off at our house early and after we had eaten our sandwiches and pickles, the two of us walked over to Mrs. Harding’s home. As soon as I walked in the door, Mrs. Harding walked over to me and pointed to a skeletal man in a white shirt and pants so baggy I thought they would drop to his ankles any minute. What there was of his hair was very gray and he walked with a cane. “That is my husband, Lynn Ruth,” she said. “He was so delighted that you invited him to your performance that he insisted I let him stay for the festivities. George! Come meet Lynn Ruth.”

Mr. Harding limped over to me and covered my hand with both of his. “What a sweet little girl, Mildred,” he said. “WHAT a darling….”

He looked up and sniffed audibly. “Is there an uncovered garbage can somewhere?” he asked.

Mrs. Harding shook her head. “It s just your imagination, George,” she said. ”Now take your seat. We are about to begin.”

Mrs. Harding made her introduction, and I walked over to the piano, rested my hands on the keys and counted to five. Then I began to play. When I finished, I stood up as I was taught to do, faced the audience and curtsied. There were my parents sitting in the first row and next to them Mr. Harding sat both hands resting on his cane, smiling and nodding to me. “BRAVA!” he exclaimed.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

I returned to the parlor and waited through a seemingly endless procession of children playing tinkling tunes on the piano and screeching sounds on the violins and then it was time for Eleanor and I to present our finale. Each of us sat at a piano, counted to five and began. Our piece was “The March of the Little Toy Soldiers” and we pounded those ivories to pulp. We both hit the pedals so hard that a vase of flowers on Eleanor’s piano fell to the floor. When we finished, we stood up, held hands and bowed to deafening applause. My eyes went to the back of the room and there was my father holding Mr. Harding up as he vomited on the back steps. “I think the loud sounds killed him,” I whispered to Eleanor.

Mrs. Harding was right there to greet us. She put her arms around us and she said “Splendid Girls, Just splendid.”

“But why was Mr. Harding throwing up in the back yard?” I asked “Did we make him sick?”

“Nonsense, “ said Mrs. Harding. “He has an allergic reaction to garlic.”

“Did he eat some for lunch?” I asked.

Mrs. Harding put her hand over he nose and shook her head. “No, dear,” she said. “You did.”

“Mrs. Harding said Mr. Harding was having a reaction to garlic,” I said as we settled ourselves in Daddy’s car.

“I’m not so sure,” said my father.” I think he was having it to Mrs. Harding.”

“That’s enough, I. R., “ said my mother and we drove home.

Years later when I was long out of grade school and beginning college I happened upon a small notice in our newspaper.

PIANO TEACHER MURDERED IN HER BED BY HUSBAND

Said the headline. I read further. “George Harding, husband of Toledo piano teacher Mildred Harding rose from his sick bed of forty years, walked into his wife’s bedroom and strangled her while she slept…”

I grabbed the paper and waved it at my parents. “Did you see this!” I exclaimed ”That ungrateful man murdered Mrs. Harding while she was sleeping! Do you suppose she had served him garlic for dinner? Or maybe she forgot to whisper?”

“She might be alive today if she hadn’t whispered so much,” said my father. “And a little garlic might have been good for both of them. You need to speak your mind in a marriage and give it plenty of flavor, Lynn Ruth, or it won’t last. Remember that.”

And I did just that and it didn’t.

Please do not shoot the pianist
She is doing her best
Anonymous