ne
white and one red, had been brought up from their winter quarters in the
cellar. There is hardly a German family in the most arid parts of Utah,
New Mexico, Arizona, but has its oleander trees. However loutish the
American-born sons of the family may be, there was never one who refused
to give his muscle to the back-breaking task of getting those tubbed
trees down into the cellar in the fall and up into the sunlight in the
spring. They may strive to avert the day, but they grapple with the tub
at last.

When Thea entered the gate, her professor leaned his spade against the
white post that supported the turreted dove-house, and wiped his face
with his shirt-sleeve; someway he never managed to have a handkerchief
about him. Wunsch was short and stocky, with something rough and
bear-like about his shoulders. His face was a dark, bricky red, deeply
creased rather than wrinkled, and the skin was like loose leather over
his neck band--he wore a brass collar button but no collar. His hair was
cropped close; iron-gray bristles on a bullet-like head. His eyes were
always suffused and bloodshot. He had a coarse, scornful mouth, and
irregular, yellow teeth, much worn at the edges. His hands were square
and red, seldom clean, but always alive, impatient, even sympathetic.

"MORGEN," he greeted his pupil in a businesslike way, put on a black
alpaca coat, and conducted her at once to the piano in Mrs. Kohler's
sitting-room. He twirled the stool to the proper height, pointed to it,
and sat down in a wooden chair beside Thea.

"The scale of B flat major," he directed, and then fell into an attitude
of deep attention. Without a word his pupil set to work.

To Mrs. Kohler, in the garden, came the cheerful sound of effort, of
vigorous striving. Unconsciously she wielded her rake more lightly.
Occasionally she heard the teacher's voice. "Scale of E minor...WEITER,
WEITER!...IMMER I hear the thumb, like a lame foot. WEITER...WEITER,
once...SCHON! The chords, quick!"

The pupil did not open her mouth until they began the second movement of
the Clementi sonata, when she remonstrated in low tones about the way he
had marked the fingering of a passage.

"It makes no matter what you think," replied her teacher coldly. "There
is only one right way. The thumb there. EIN, ZWEI, DREI, VIER," etc.
Then for an hour there was no further interruption.

At the end of the lesson Thea turned on her stool and leaned her arm on
the keyboard. They