12--A Service of Love

Passage Twelve A Service of Love

O Henry

1. When one loves ones art no service seems too hard.

2. That is our premise. This story shall draw a conclusion from it, and show at the

same time that the premise is incorrect. That will be a new thing in logic, and a feat in story-telling somewhat older than the Great Wall of China.

3. Joe Larrabee came out of the post-oak flats of the Middle West pulsing with a

genius for pictorial art. At six he drew a picture of the town pump with a prominent citizen passing it hastily. This effort was framed and hung in the drug store window by the side of the ear of corn with an uneven number of rows. At twenty he left for New York with a flowing necktie and a capital tied up somewhat closer.

4. Delia Caruthers did things in six octaves so promisingly in a pine-tree village in

the South that her relatives chipped in enough in her chip hat for her to go ‗North‘ and ‗finish.‘ They could not see her f—, but that is our story.

5. Joe and Delia met in an atelier where a number of art and music students had

gathered to discuss chiaroscuro, Wagner, music, Rembrandt‘s worksm, pictures, Waldteufel, wall-paper, Chopin, and Oolong.

6. Joe and Delia became enamored one of the other or each of the other, as you

please, and in a short time were married—for (see above), when one loves one‘s Art no service seem too hard.

7. Mr. and Mrs. Larrabee began housekeeping in a flat. It was a lonesome

flat—something like the A sharp way down at the left-hand end 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 would be—sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor janitor for the privilege of living in a flat with your Art and your Delia.

8. Flat-dwellers shall endorse my dictum that theirs is the only true happiness. If a

home is happy it cannot fit too close—let the dresser collapse and become a billiard table; let the mantel turn to a rowing machine, the escritoire to a spare bedchamber, the washstand to 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 hat on Hatteras, your cape on Cape Horn, and go out by Labrador.

9. Joe was painting in the class of the great Magister—you know his fame. His fees

are high; his lessons are light—his high-lights have brought him renown. Delia was studying under Rosenstock—you know his repute as a disturber of the piano keys.

10. 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 old gentlemen with thin side-whiskers and thick pocketbooks would sandbag one another in his studio for the privilege of buying. Delia was to become familiar and then contemptuous

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with Music, so that when she saw the orchestra seats and boxes unsold she could have sore throat and lobster in a private dining-room and refuse to go on the stage.

11. But the best, in my opinion, was the home life in the little flat—the ardent,

voluble chats after the day‘s study; the cosy dinners and fresh, light breakfasts; the interchange of ambitions—ambitions interwoven each with the other‘ or else inconsiderable—the mutual help and inspiration; and—overlook my artlessness—stuffed olives and cheese sandwiches at 1l p.m.

12. But after awhile Art flagged. It sometimes does, even if some switchman doesn‘t

flag it. Everything going out and nothing coming in, as the vulgarians say. Money was lacking to pay Mr. Magister and Herr Rosenstock their prices. When one loves one‘s Art no service seems too hard. So, Delia said she must give music lessons to keep the chafing dish bubbling.

13. For two or three days she went out canvassing for pupils. One evening she came

home elated.

14. ‗Joe, dear,‘ she said gleefully, ‗I‘ve a pupil. And, oh, the loveliest people!

General—General A. B. Pinkney‘s daughter—on Seventy-first Street. Such a splendid house, Joe—you ought to see the front door! Byzantine I think you would call it. And inside! Oh, Joe, I never saw anything like it before.

15. ‗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 three lessons a week; and, just think, Joe! $5 a lesson. I don't mind it a bit; for when I get two or three more pupils I can resume my lessons with Herr Rosenstock. Now, smooth out that wrinkle between your brows, dear, and let‘s have a nice supper.’

16. ‗That‘s all right for you, Dele,‘ said Joe, attacking a can of peas with a carving

knife and a hatchet, ‗but how about me? Do you think I‘m going to let you hustle for wages while I philander in the regions of high art? Not by the bones of Benvenuto Cellini! I guess I can sell papers or lay cobblestones, and bring in a dollar or two.‘

17. Delia came and hung about his neck.

18. ‗Joe, dear, you are silly. You must keep on at your studies. It is not 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 live as happily as millionaires on $15 a week. You mustn‘t think of leaving Mr. Magister.‘

19. ‗All right,‘ said Joe, reaching for the blue scalloped vegetable dish. ‗But I hate for

you to be giving lessons. It isn‘t Art. But you‘re a trump and a dear to do it.‘ 20. ‗When one loves one‘s Art no service seems too hard,‘ said Delia.

21. ‗Magister praised the sky in that sketch I made in the park,‘ said Joe. ‗And Tinkle

gave me permission to hang two of them in his window. I may sell one if the right kind of a moneyed idiot sees them.‘

22. ‗I‘m sure you will,‘ said Delia sweetly. ‗And now let‘s be thankful for General

Pinkney and this veal roast.‘

23. During all of the next week the Larrabees had an early breakfast. Joe was

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enthusiastic about some morning-effect sketches he was doing in Central Park, and Delia packed him off breakfasted, coddled, praised, and kissed at seven o‘clock. Art is an engaging mistress. It was most times seven o‘clock when he returned in the evening.

24. At the end of the week Delia, sweetly proud but languid, triumphantly tossed

three five-dollar bills on the 8 by 10 (inches) centre table of the 8 by 10 (feet) flat parlor.

25. ‗Sometimes,‘ she said, a little wearily, ‗Clementina tries me. I‘m afraid she

doesn‘t practice enough, and I have to tell her the same things so often. And then she always dresses entirely in white, and that does get monotonous. But General Pinkney is the dearest old man! I wish you could know him, Joe. He comes in sometimes when I am with Clementina at the piano—he is a widower, you know—and stands there pulling his white goatee. ―And how are the semiquavers and the demi-semiquavers progressing?‖ he always asks.

26. ‗I wish you could see the wainscoting in that drawing-room, Joe! And those

Astrakhan rug portieres. And Clementina has such a funny little cough. I hope she is stronger than she looks. Oh, I really am getting attached to her, she is so gentle and high bred. General Pinkney‘s brother was once Minister to Bolivia.‘

27. And then Joe, with the air of a Monte Cristo, drew forth a ten, a five, a two and a

one—all legal tender notes—and laid them beside Delia‘s earnings.

28. ‗Sold that water-color of the obelisk to a man from Peoria,‘ he announced

overwhelmingly ‗Don‘t joke with me,‘ said Delia—‗not from Peoria!‘

29. ‗All the way. I wish you could see him, Dele. Fat man with a woolen muffler and

a quill toothpick. He saw the sketch in Tinkle‘s window and thought it was a windmill at first. He was game, though, and bought it anyhow. He ordered another—an oil sketch of the Lackawanna freight depot—to take back with him. Music lessons! Oh, I guess Art is still in it.‘

30. ‗I‘m so glad you‘ve kept on,‘ said Delia heartily. ‗You‘re bound to win, dear.

Thirty-three dollars! We never had so much to spend before. We‘ll have oysters to-night.‘

31. ‗And filet mignon with champignons,‘ said Joe. ‗Where is the olive fork?‘

32. On the next Saturday evening Joe reached home first. He spread his $18 on the

parlor table and washed what seemed to be a great deal of dark paint from his hands.

33. Haft an hour later Delia arrived, her right hand tied up in a shapeless bundle of

wraps and bandages.

34. ‗How is this?‘ asked Joe after the usual greetings. 35. Delia laughed, but not very joyously

36. ‗Clementina,‘ she explained, ‗insisted upon a Welsh rabbit after her lesson. She is

such a queer girl. Welsh rabbits at five in the afternoon. The General was there. You should have seen him run for the chafing dish, Joe, just as if there wasn‘t a servant in the house. 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 was so sorry! But General Pinkney! –Joe,

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that old man nearly went distracted. He rushed downstairs and sent somebody—they said the furnace man or somebody in the basement—out to a drug store for some oil and things to bind it up with. It doesn‘t hurt so much now.‘

37. ‗What‘s this?‘ asked Joe, taking the hand tenderly and pulling at some white

strands beneath the bandages.

38. ‗It‘s something soft,‘ said Delia, ‗that had oil on it. Oh, Joe, did you sell another

sketch?‘ She had seen the money on the table.

39. ‗Did I?‘ said Joe. ‗Just ask the man from Peoria. He got his depot to-day, and he

isn‘t sure but he thinks he wants another parkscape and a view on the Hudson. What time this afternoon did you burn your hand, Dele?’

40. ‗Five o‘clock, I think,‘ said Dele plaintively. ‗The iron—I mean the rabbit came

off the fire about that time. You ought to have seen General Pinkney, Joe, when—‘

41. ‗Sit down here a moment, Dele,‘ said Joe. He drew her to the couch, sat down

beside her and put his arm across her shoulders.

42. ‗What have you been doing for the last two weeks, Dele?‘ he asked.

43. She braved it for a moment or two with an eye full of love and stubbornness, and

murmured a phrase or two vaguely of General Pinkney; but at length down went her head and out came the truth and tears.

44. ‗I couldn‘t get any pupils,‘ she confessed. ‗And I couldn‘t bear to have you give

up your lessons; and I got a place ironing shirts in that big Twenty-fourth Street laundry. And I think I did very well to make up both General Pinkney and Clementina, don‘t you, Joe? And when a girl in the laundry set down a hot iron on my hand this afternoon I was all the way home making up that story about the Welsh rabbit. You‘re not angry, are you, Joe? And if I hadn‘t got the work you mightn‘t have sold your sketches to that man from Peoria.‘ 45. ‗He wasn‘t from Peoria,‘ said Joe slowly

46. ‗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‘t giving music lessons to Clementina?‘

47. ‗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 this afternoon for a girl upstairs who had her hand burned with a smoothing-iron. I‘ve been firing the engine in that laundry for the last two weeks.‘ 48. ‗And then you didn‘t—‘

49. ‗My purchaser from Peoria,‘ said Joe, ‗and General Pinkney are both creations of

the same art—but you wouldn‘t call it either painting or music.‘ 50. And then they both laughed, and Joe began: 51. ‗When one loves one's Art no service seems—‘

52. But Delia stopped him with her hand on his lips. ‗No,‘ she said—‗just ―When one

loves.‖‘

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