And she could play the Beethoven symphony any time she wao. It was a queer thing about this music she had heard last autumn. The symphony stayed inside her always and grew little by little. The reason was this: the whole symphony was in her mind. It had to be. She had heard every note, and somewhere in the back of her mind the whole of the music was still there just as it had been played. But she could do nothing t it all out again. Except wait and be ready for the times when suddenly a new part came to her. Wait for it to grow like leaves grow slowly on the branches of a spring oak tree.
In the inside room, along with music, there was Mister Singer.
Every afternoon as soon as she finished playing on the piano in the gym she walked down the main street past the store where he worked. From the front window she couldnt see Mister Singer. He worked in the back, behind a curtain. But she looked at the store where he stayed every day and saw the people he khen every night she waited on the front porch for him to e home. Sometimes she followed him upstairs. She sat on the bed and watched him put away his hat and undo the button on bis collar and brush his hair. For some reason it was like they had a secret together. Or like they waited to tell each other things that had never been said before.
He was the only person in the inside room. A long time ago there had been others. She thought bad remembered how it was before he came. She remembered a girl way ba the sixth grade named Celeste. This girl had straight blonde hair and a turned-up nose and freckles. She wore a red-wool jumper with a white blouse. She walked pigeon-toed. Every day she brought an e for little recess and a blue tin box of lunch f recess. Other kids would gobble the food they had brought at little recess and then were hungry later—but not Celeste. She pulled off the crusts of her sandwiches and
ate only the soft middle part. Always she had a stuffed hard-boiled egg and she would hold it in her hand, mashing the yellow with her thumb so that the print of her finger was left there.
Celeste alked to her and she alked to Celeste.
Although that was what she wanted more than anything else.
At night she would lie awake and think about Celeste. She would plan that they were best friends and think about the time whee could e home with her to eat supper and spend the night. But that never happened.
The way she felt about Celeste would never let her go up and make friends with her like she would any other person. After a year Celeste moved to another part of town ao another school.
Then there was a boy called Buck. He was big and had pimples on his face. Wheood by him in lio mar at eight-thirty he smelled bad—like bis britches needed airing. Buck did a nose dive at the principal ond was suspended. When he laughed he lifted his upper lip and shook all over. She thought about him like she had thought about Celeste. Then there was the lady who sold lottery tickets for a turkey raffle. And Miss Anglin, who taught the seventh grade.
And Carole Lombard in the movies. All of them.
But with Mister Sihere was a differehe way she felt about him came on her slowly, and she could not think bad realize just how it happehe other people had been ordinary, but Mister Singer was not The first day he rang the doorbell to ask about a room she had looked a long time into his face. She had opehe door and read over the card he handed her