The Cricket in Times Square (10 page)

“That was nothing,” said Papa Bellini proudly. “You should hear him play
Aida.
”

“May I try an experiment?” asked Mr. Smedley.

All the Bellinis said “yes” at once. The music teacher whistled the scale—do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do. Chester flexed his legs, and as quickly as you could run your fingers up the strings of a harp, he had played the whole scale.

Mr. Smedley took off his glasses. His eyes were moist. “He has absolute pitch,” he said in a shaky voice. “I have met only one other person who did. She was a soprano named Arabella Hefflefinger.”

Chester started to play again. He went through the two other hymns he'd learned—“The Rosary” and “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”—and then did the violin concerto. Naturally, he couldn't play it just as it was written without a whole orchestra to back him up, but he was magnificent, all things considered.

Once Mr. Smedley got used to the idea that he was listening to a concert given by a cricket, he enjoyed the performance very much. He had special praise for Chester's “phrasing,” by which he meant the neat way the cricket played all the notes of a passage without letting them slide together. And sometimes, when he had been deeply moved by a section, the music teacher would touch his chest over his heart and say, “That cricket has it
here!
”

As Chester chirped his way through the program, a crowd collected around the newsstand. After each new piece, the people applauded and congratulated the Bellinis on their remarkable cricket. Mama and Papa were fit to burst with pride. Mario was very happy too, but of course he had thought all summer that Chester was a very unusual person.

When the playing was over, Mr. Smedley stood up and shook hands with Papa, Mama, and Mario. “I want to thank you for the most delightful hour I have ever spent,” he said. “The whole world should know of this cricket.” A light suddenly spread over his face. “Why, I believe I shall write a letter to the music editor of
The New York Times,
” he said. “They'd certainly be interested.”

And this is the letter Mr. Smedley wrote:

To the Music Editor of
The New York Times
and to the People of New York—

Rejoice, Oh New Yorkers—for a musical miracle has come to pass in our city! This very day, Sunday, August 28th, surely a day which will go down in musical history, it was my pleasure and privilege to be present at the most beautiful recital ever heard in a lifetime devoted to the sublime art. (Music, that is.) Being a musicologist myself, and having graduated—with honors—from a well-known local school of music, I feel I am qualified to judge such matters, and I say, without hesitation, that never have such strains been heard in New York before!

“But who was the artist?” the eager music lover will ask. “Was it perchance some new singer, just lately arrived from a triumphant tour of the capitals of Europe?”

No, music lovers, it was not!

“Then was it some violinist, who pressed his cheek with love against his darling violin as he played?”

Wrong again, music lovers.

“Could it have been a pianist—with sensitive, long fingers that drew magic sounds from the shining ivory keys?”

Ah, music lovers, you will never guess. It was a cricket! A simple cricket, no longer than half my little finger—which is rather long because I play the piano—but a cricket that is able to chirp operatic, symphonic, and popular music. Am I wrong, then, in describing such an event as a miracle?

And where is this extraordinary performer? Not in Carnegie Hall, music lovers—nor in the Metropolitan Opera House. You will find him in the newsstand run by the Bellini family in the subway station at Times Square. I urge—I implore!—every man, woman, and child who has music in his soul not to miss one of his illustrious—nay, his
glorious
—concerts!

Enchantedly yours,

Horatio P. Smedley

 

P.S. I also give piano lessons. For information write to:

H. P. Smedley

1578 West 63rd Street

New York, N.Y.

THIRTEEN

Fame

The music editor of
The New York Times
was quite surprised to get Mr. Smedley's letter, but he believed in the freedom of the press and had it printed on the theatrical and musical page of the paper. The next morning, thousands of people—at home over the breakfast table and on buses and trains coming into New York—read about Chester.

The Bellinis got to the newsstand very early. Papa opened the
Times
bundle and thumbed through a copy looking for the letter. When he found it, he read it aloud to Mama and Mario. Then he folded the paper and put it back on the stack to be sold.

“So,” said Papa. “We have a celebrity in our midst.”

The celebrity was just at that moment having himself a big yawn in the cricket cage. He had been up most of the night with his manager and Harry Cat, learning new pieces. After eating breakfast and having another stretch, he tested his wings against each other, like a violinist making sure that his violin is in tune. The wings were fine. This time of year they almost itched to chirp. Chester ran over the scales a few times and started to play.

His first selection was something he had heard the night before called “A Little Night Music.” It was by a man named Mozart. Chester and Tucker and Harry had all been delighted by “A Little Night Music.” They thought it was a very good piece for the cricket to learn because they had heard it first at night, and also because Chester was quite a little person himself. It was lovely music too, with little tunes that sounded like insects hopping around and having a grand time.

As Chester played, the station began to fill up with the usual commuters. People collected around the newsstand—some drawn by the chirping, and others because they wanted to see the cricket they'd read about. And as always in New York, when a little crowd formed, more people came just to see what the others were looking at. Bees do that, and so do human beings.

Somebody asked who was playing.

“A cricket,” a man answered.

“Oh, stop joking!” the first man said, and burst out laughing.

In front of him a little lady with a feather in her hat, who was enjoying the music, turned around and whispered “Shhhh!” very angrily.

In another part of the station a man was reading Mr. Smedley's letter, and two other men were also reading it over his shoulders.

“My gosh!” said the one on the right. “A cricket. Who would have believed it?”

“It's a fake,” said the man on the left. “Probably a record.”

The man in the middle, who owned the paper, snapped it shut. “It
isn't
a fake!” he said. “It's a little living creature—and it sings beautifully! I'm going to give up my season ticket to the Philharmonic.”

Everywhere people were talking and arguing and listening to Chester.

Mario made a pile of old magazines and put the cricket cage on top of them so everyone could see better and hear more clearly. When Chester finished one number, a shout of “More! More!” rang through the station. The cricket would catch his breath, have a sip of water, flex his wings, and begin a new selection as fast as he could.

And the crowd grew and grew. Mama Bellini had never seen such a crowd around the newsstand. But she wasn't one to be so dazed by good fortune that she missed out on such a chance. Taking a bundle of the
Times
under one arm, she worked her way around, murmuring softly—so as not to disturb the music lovers—“Read about the cricket, read about the cricket, it's in
The New York Times.
”

People snapped up the papers like candy. Mama had to keep going back to the newsstand for new loads. And in less than half an hour the whole stock of the
Times
had been sold.

“Don't sit with your eyes shut,” Mama whispered to Papa. (Papa Bellini was one of those people who enjoy listening to music most with their eyes closed.) She put a bunch of
Musical America
into his arms. “Try these—it's a good time now.”

Papa sighed, but did as she asked him. And in a little while all the copies of
Musical America
were gone too. It is safe to say that there had never been such an interest in music in the Times Square subway station as there was on that morning.

Over in the drain pipe Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat were listening too—Harry with his eyes closed like Papa Bellini. There were so many human beings that they couldn't even see the newsstand. But they could hear Chester, chirping away, on the other side of all the heads and legs and backs. His clear notes filled the station.

“Didn't I tell you?” said Tucker between pieces. “Look at them all. There's a fortune in this. I wish one of us was big enough to pass the hat.”

But Harry only smiled. He was happy right where he was, just sitting, enjoying the music.

And the crowd kept on growing. That first day alone, there were seven hundred and eighty-three people late to work because they had stopped to listen to Chester.

During the next few days, other papers besides the
Times
began to run articles on the cricket. Even
Musical America
sent an editor (an assistant editor) down to hear a recital. And Chester was news on radio and television. All the announcers were talking about the remarkable insect who was delighting throngs in the Times Square subway station.

The Bellinis decided that the best times for Chester to play were early in the morning and late in the afternoon, since that was when the station was fullest. Concerts began at 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. and usually lasted an hour and a half—not including encores.

Business boomed at the newsstand. Mama made sure that extra loads of magazines and newspapers were delivered. But even so, by closing time they had sold out completely. Mama Bellini, by the way, turned out to be the best friend a cricket ever had. At noon she would rush home and fix Chester some delicacy for lunch, like a midget fruit salad or an entire vegetable dinner so small you could serve it on a silver dollar. Chester really preferred his mulberry leaves, but he ate everything so as not to hurt her feelings.

Sai Fong, who had seen Chester's picture in the paper, kept Mario supplied with leaves. He and the Chinese gentleman dug out two collapsible chairs from his attic and came uptown every day at eight and four-thirty to hear Chester's new programs.

Mr. Smedley was there at least once a day too. He brought a tape recorder and made recordings of all the new pieces Chester learned. And during the intermissions—there was always an intermission of ten minutes halfway through the concert—he delivered short talks on musical appreciation to the audiences.

So by Thursday Chester Cricket was the most famous musician in New York City. But now here is a strange thing: he wasn't really happy—not the way he used to be. Life didn't seem to have the fun and freedom it had had before.

For one thing, although he thought that glory was very nice, Chester found that it made you tired. Two concerts a day, every day, was an exhausting program. And he wasn't used to playing on schedule. Back home in the meadow, if the sun felt nice, or the moon was full, or if he wanted to have a musical conversation with his friend the lark, he would chirp because the mood was on him. But here he had to begin performing at eight and four-thirty whether he felt like it or not. Of course he was very glad to be helping the Bellinis, but a lot of the joy was gone from his playing.

And there was something else: Chester didn't like being looked at. It wasn't so bad while he was playing. Everyone was quiet, enjoying the music. But after the performance was over, the human beings crowded around and put their faces down close to the bars and poked their fingers through. Souvenir hunters had taken his paper cup and even the pieces of mulberry leaves that were left over. Chester knew they didn't mean any harm—but he couldn't get used to the idea that millions of eyes were staring at him. It got so bad that when the concerts were over, he took to crawling into the matchbox and pushing up a piece of Kleenex to block the entrance.