Basil Everman — Text and Context

There was neither strife nor envy between Waltonville's classes. Mrs. Lister respected Mr. Underwood, the storekeeper, but did not invite him to dinner, and Mrs. Underwood would have been greatly disturbed at the prospect of entertaining Mrs. Lister.

The old house, in whose exact center Mrs. Lister stood when she called Richard, had been built sixty years earlier for her father, President Richard Everman, and had descended to his son-in-law and successor. It was a broad, pleasant house with high ceilings and with woodwork of solid oak. One side of the first floor was divided into library and sitting-room and the other into dim, long double parlors. Dining-room and kitchen were in a wing at the back.

On a level with Mrs. Lister the bedrooms opened each with an elaborately dressed and inviting bed, dim in the pleasant light which filtered in through bowed shutters. Above in the third story were other bedrooms and a large, otherwise empty attic in which stood the reservoir which held the supply of water for the house. As a little girl, she had come with her two companions, her brother Basil and Thomasina Davis, to steal short peeps at the tank in which they could easily have been drowned. She was the only one of the three who was really afraid. Thomasina insisted upon running boldly into the room and little Basil was found afterwards there alone. Basil's desire to investigate was always keener than his fear of danger.

Having waited for ten minutes, Mrs. Lister now returned to her post in the hall, and raised her voice in three successive calls. At the last impatient summons, the piano in the parlor ceased its clangor with a series of great chords, rolling under a fine, clear touch from the lowest of the yellowed keys to the uppermost treble. In the bass the tones were indescribably mournful, as though the aged instrument cried out in pain under the strong fingers of youth; in the treble they sounded a light cackle, half childish, half senile, like the laughter of an old man. The piano, bought years ago for Basil, resembled an old man in many ways; its teeth were yellow, it creaked as though rheumatism had taken a permanent abode in its joints, and it was swathed in a covering of warm red felt. Though it was the only object in Mrs. Lister's house which was not exactly adapted to the use to which it was put, and though it reminded her of misery, she would not have dreamed of selling it or of giving it away of of exchanging it for another instrument, any more than she would have sold or given away or exchanged an aged relative. A piano once was a piano forever, and no dismal sound from its depths, no fierce sarcasm from Richard could depreciate it in her eyes.

"Richard!" Before the player had righted the piano stool or had closed the square lid over the yellowed keys, Mrs. Lister called again.

He took the stairway in four great leaps, the last of which his mother stepped aside to avoid. But she did not escape the bear's hug with which he grasped her. He was a tall, spare young fellow, scarcely more than a lad, with crisp, light hair and dark eyes.

"Yes, mother! Yes, mother! Yes, mother!"

"Your cap and gown are there on my bed, and you must change your tie and do it quickly."

"The procession will form in one half-hour, mother, and they can't possibly begin till I tune up. I have half a mind to be late so I can see 'em squirm." Richard took the tie from his mother's hand and stationed himself before the glass in her bedroom, where the walnut furniture was heaviest and most elaborately carved. "Think of it, my last morning in chapel! No more eight o'clocks! No more Pol Econ, no more Chemistry, no more worthless stuff of any sort!"

"I hope you know your speech _thoroughly_, Richard."

"I could never memorize well, and I was always frightened when I had to say a piece in school. Aren't you at _all_ nervous?"

"Not at all. I'm cool-headed and cold-hearted. _Morituri te salutamus_, that is, 'We, about to die, salute you!'"

"You are not going to say that, Richard!"