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Show 73 "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, " renditions of the Joseph Silver Band, and whatever else made the two-hour program, but I went to sleep and drooled on my red voile dress. "How would you like to take piano lessons?" was the leading question which launched me into my musical career. Mama counting dots and winning a piano had a definite impact on Joseph's aesthetic outlook. Up to then there was only one piano in town, and that was in the dark, rich parlor of Andrew Ross, the town's rich man. Since he and his wife Nora had no children the townspeople had no means of eroding their solitude. Although theirs was the middle house in town, it might as well have been on top of a mountain with a bramble hedge around it. The only time Mr. Ross, whom most people equated with God, spoke to me was when he came along and found me choking to death on a lump of candy. "Cup your hands and dip water from the ditch, little girl, " he instructed. "Swallow it and wash the candy down. " I swallowed so hard at the shock of being spoken to by the great man that I didn't need the water. When Mama got the Kimball piano, the next thing to be imported, in the form of Miss Ella Memmott, of Scipio, was the piano teacher. We became the Joneses, with whom everybody had to keep up ; if we could have a piano, so could other people. I was not the only little girl to start plinking out "Jolly Farmer" and "Long, Long Ago, " in lesson |
