A Service of Love

by O. Henry

　　

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When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard. That is our premise. This story shall draw a conclusion from it, andshow at the same time that the premise is incorrect. That will be anew thing in logic, and a feat in story-telling somewhat older thanthe great wall of China. Joe Larrabee came out of the post-oak flats of the Middle Westpulsing with a genius for pictorial art. At six he drew a pictureof the town pump with a prominent citizen passing it hastily. Thiseffort was framed and hung in the drug store window by the side ofthe ear of corn with an uneven number of rows. At twenty he left forNew York with a flowing necktie and a capital tied up somewhatcloser. Delia Caruthers did things in six octaves so promisingly in a pine-tree village in the South that her relatives chipped in enough in herchip hat for her to go "North" and "finish." They could not see herf--, but that is our story. Joe and Delia met in an atelier where a number of art and musicstudents had gathered to discuss chiaroscuro, Wagner, music,Rembrandt's works, pictures, Waldteufel, wall paper, Chopin andOolong. Joe and Delia became enamoured one of the other, or each of theother, as you please, and in a short time were married--for (seeabove), when one loves one's Art no service seems too hard. Mr. and Mrs. Larrabee began housekeeping in a flat. It was alonesome flat--something like the A sharp way down at the left-handend of the keyboard. And they were happy; for they had their Art,and they had each other. And my advice to the rich young man wouldbe--sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor--janitor for theprivilege of living in a flat with your Art and your Delia. Flat-dwellers shall indorse my dictum that theirs is the only truehappiness. If a home is happy it cannot fit too close--let thedresser collapse and become a billiard table; let the mantel turn toa rowing machine, the escritoire to a spare bedchamber, the washstandto an upright piano; let the four walls come together, if they will,so you and your Delia are between. But if home be the other kind,let it be wide and long--enter you at the Golden Gate, hang your haton Hatteras, your cape on Cape Horn and go out by the Labrador. Joe was painting in the class of the great Magister--you know hisfame. His fees are high; his lessons are light--his high-lights havebrought him renown. Delia was studying under Rosenstock--you knowhis repute as a disturber of the piano keys. They were mighty happy as long as their money lasted. So is every--but I will not be cynical. Their aims were very clear and defined.Joe was to become capable very soon of turning out pictures that oldgentlemen with thin side-whiskers and thick pocketbooks would sandbagone another in his studio for the privilege of buying. Delia was tobecome familiar and then contemptuous with Music, so that when shesaw the orchestra seats and boxes unsold she could have sore throatand lobster in a private dining-room and refuse to go on the stage. But the best, in my opinion, was the home life in the little flat--the ardent, voluble chats after the day's study; the cozy dinners andfresh, light breakfasts; the interchange of ambitions--ambitionsinterwoven each with the other's or else inconsiderable--the mutualhelp and inspiration; and--overlook my artlessness--stuffed olivesand cheese sandwiches at 11 p.m. But after a while Art flagged. It sometimes does, even if someswitchman doesn't flag it. Everything going out and nothing comingin, as the vulgarians say. Money was lacking to pay Mr. Magister andHerr Rosenstock their prices. When one loves one's Art no serviceseems too hard. So, Delia said she must give music lessons to keepthe chafing dish bubbling. For two or three days she went out canvassing for pupils. Oneevening she came home elated. "Joe, dear," she said, gleefully, "I've a pupil. And, oh, theloveliest people! General--General A. B. Pinkney's daughter--onSeventy-first street. Such a splendid house, Joe--you ought to seethe front door! Byzantine I think you would call it. And inside!Oh, Joe, I never saw anything like it before. "My pupil is his daughter Clementina. I dearly love her already.She's a delicate thing-dresses always in white; and the sweetest,simplest manners! Only eighteen years old. I'm to give threelessons a week; and, just think, Joe! $5 a lesson. I don't mind ita bit; for when I get two or three more pupils I can resume mylessons with Herr Rosenstock. Now, smooth out that wrinkle betweenyour brows, dear, and let's have a nice supper." "That's all right for you, Dele," said Joe, attacking a can of peaswith a carving knife and a hatchet, "but how about me? Do you thinkI'm going to let you hustle for wages while I philander in theregions of high art? Not by the bones of Benvenuto Cellini! I guessI can sell papers or lay cobblestones, and bring in a dollar or two." Delia came and hung about his neck. "Joe, dear, you are silly. You must keep on at your studies. It isnot as if I had quit my music and gone to work at something else.While I teach I learn. I am always with my music. And we can liveas happily as millionaires on $15 a week. You mustn't think ofleaving Mr. Magister." "All right," said Joe, reaching for the blue scalloped vegetabledish. "But I hate for you to be giving lessons. It isn't Art. Butyou're a trump and a dear to do it." "When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard," said Delia. "Magister praised the sky in that sketch I made in the park," saidJoe. "And Tinkle gave me permission to hang two of them in hiswindow. I may sell one if the right kind of a moneyed idiot seesthem." "I'm sure you will," said Delia, sweetly. "And now let's be thankfulfor Gen. Pinkney and this veal roast." During all of the next week the Larrabees had an early breakfast.Joe was enthusiastic about some morning-effect sketches he was doingin Central Park, and Delia packed him off breakfasted, coddled,praised and kissed at 7 o'clock. Art is an engaging mistress. Itwas most times 7 o'clock when he returned in the evening. At the end of the week Delia, sweetly proud but languid, triumphantlytossed three five-dollar bills on the 8x10 (inches) centre table ofthe 8x10 (feet) flat parlour. Sometimes," she said, a little wearily, "Clementina tries me. I'mafraid she doesn't practise enough, and I have to tell her the samethings so often. And then she always dresses entirely in white, andthat does get monotonous. But Gen. Pinkney is the dearest old man!I wish you could know him, Joe. He comes in sometimes when I am withClementina at the piano--he is a widower, you know--and stands therepulling his white goatee. 'And how are the semiquavers and thedemisemiquavers progressing?' he always asks. "I wish you could see the wainscoting in that drawing-room, Joe!And those Astrakhan rug portieres. And Clementina has such a funnylittle cough. I hope she is stronger than she looks. Oh, I reallyam getting attached to her, she is so gentle and high bred. Gen.Pinkney's brother was once Minister to Bolivia." And then Joe, with the air of a Monte Cristo, drew forth a ten, afive, a two and a one--all legal tender notes--and laid them besideDelia's earnings. "Sold that watercolour of the obelisk to a man from Peoria," heannounced overwhelmingly. "Don't joke with me," said Delia, "not from Peoria!" "All the way. I wish you could see him, Dele. Fat man with awoollen muffler and a quill toothpick. He saw the sketch in Tinkle'swindow and thought it was a windmill at first, he was game, though,and bought it anyhow. He ordered another--an oil sketch of theLackawanna freight depot--to take back with him. Music lessons! Oh,I guess Art is still in it." "I'm so glad you've kept on," said Delia, heartily. "You're bound towin, dear. Thirty-three dollars! We never had so much to spendbefore. We'll have oysters to-night." "And filet mignon with champignons," said Joe. "Were is the olivefork?" On the next Saturday evening Joe reached home first. He spread his$18 on the parlour table and washed what seemed to be a great deal ofdark paint from his hands. Half an hour later Delia arrived, her right hand tied up in ashapeless bundle of wraps and bandages. "How is this?" asked Joe after the usual greetings. Delia laughed,but not very joyously. Clementina," she explained, "insisted upon a Welsh rabbit after herlesson. She is such a queer girl. Welsh rabbits at 5 in theafternoon. The General was there. You should have seen him run forthe chafing dish, Joe, just as if there wasn't a servant in thehouse. I know Clementina isn't in good health; she is so nervous.In serving the rabbit she spilled a great lot of it, boiling hot,over my hand and wrist. It hurt awfully, Joe. And the dear girl wasso sorry! But Gen. Pinkney!--Joe, that old man nearly wentdistracted. He rushed downstairs and sent somebody--they said thefurnace man or somebody in the basement--out to a drug store for someoil and things to bind it up with. It doesn't hurt so much now." "What's this?" asked Joe, taking the hand tenderly and pulling atsome white strands beneath the bandages. "It's something soft," said Delia, "that had oil on it. Oh, Joe, didyou sell another sketch?" She had seen the money on the table. "Did I?" said Joe; "just ask the man from Peoria. He got his depotto-day, and he isn't sure but he thinks he wants another parkscapeand a view on the Hudson. What time this afternoon did you burn yourhand, Dele?" "Five o'clock, I think," said Dele, plaintively. "The iron--I meanthe rabbit came off the fire about that time. You ought to have seenGen. Pinkney, Joe, when--" "Sit down here a moment, Dele," said Joe. He drew her to the couch,sat beside her and put his arm across her shoulders. "What have you been doing for the last two weeks, Dele?" he asked. She braved it for a moment or two with an eye full of love andstubbornness, and murmured a phrase or two vaguely of Gen. Pinkney;but at length down went her head and out came the truth and tears. "I couldn't get any pupils," she confessed. "And I couldn't bear tohave you give up your lessons; and I got a place ironing shirts inthat big Twentyfourth street laundry. And I think I did very well tomake up both General Pinkney and Clementina, don't you, Joe? Andwhen a girl in the laundry set down a hot iron on my hand thisafternoon I was all the way home making up that story about the Welshrabbit. You're not angry, are you, Joe? And if I hadn't got thework you mightn't have sold your sketches to that man from Peoria. "He wasn't from Peoria," said Joe, slowly. "Well, it doesn't matter where he was from. How clever you are, Joe--and--kiss me, Joe--and what made you ever suspect that I wasn'tgiving music lessons to Clementina?" "I didn't," said Joe, "until to-night. And I wouldn't have then,only I sent up this cotton waste and oil from the engine-room thisafternoon for a girl upstairs who had her hand burned with asmoothing-iron. I've been firing the engine in that laundry for thelast two weeks." "And then you didn't--" "My purchaser from Peoria," said Joe, "and Gen. Pinkney are bothcreations of the same art--but you wouldn't call it either paintingor music. And then they both laughed, and Joe began: "When one loves one's Art no service seems--" But Delia stopped him with her hand on his lips. "No," she said--"just 'When one loves.'"

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