A Young Girl Teaches A Hard Stern Teacher A Lesson In Love: A Short Story

This is a short story about a girl whose parents had no money for the piano lessons she wanted so badly. It's a story of how she got those lessons from a stern, hard woman who later came to teach her how to play the piano. The girl taught the woman a lesson in love, that in turn made the hard hearted woman appreciate that love, and even returned it in a beautiful way.

As a third grader at Welcome Elementary School, I wondered if Miss Smith had always played the piano and taught at that school. The school was built almost 50 yrs. ago, and people said she had been there since it was first built. That could be the case, because Mrs. Smith was ancient. She was a large woman. She was very tall and heavy. She walked as though her back would not bend. Her voice was very deep, almost like a man’s voice. She wore her long, white hair in a tight bun at the back of her neck. Her eyes were hidden behind thick, rimless glasses. Every day she wore a different clean, starched and ironed cotton dress. She wore heavy tan cotton stockings. Sometimes when she sat crossed legged at her desk, I could see her rolled stockings held below her knees with a garter. My Mother wore the same kind of wide elastic garter. You could make a lot of neat playthings with these garters. I wondered how Miss Smith stuffed her feet into those black, shiny shoes she wore. They seemed too small for her feet, because her feet sort of spilled out at the top of the shoes. She must have polished those shoes every night. I think she had her own teeth, but I could never be sure because she never smiled.

At 10:00 a.m. every morning, Miss Smith played the piano, and we would all sing. This was my favorite time of the day. I would watch her large fingers as they floated lightly over the keys of the piano. I would listen to her making that beautiful music, and I would wish with all my heart that I could play the piano too.

I don’t remember Miss Smith as being a mean lady, but I don’t remember her as what you would call a sweet lady, either. We just knew that we had better behave and do our work. You could just tell by her expression that she could be really mean if the occasion called for it. We didn’t take any chances.

One day after school, I just sort of fooled around until I was the only student left in the classroom. Miss Smith was gathering her papers to take home. I think she must have graded these papers at home. I was trying to get up the courage to ask her a very important question. I had to do it now. It was hard to breathe. I hoped she wouldn’t notice my hands shaking when I stood in front of her. I didn’t recognize my voice when I spoke.

“Miss Smith, I would like to ask you something," the words finally came out.

She slowly put her papers back down on her desk. “Yes, Mary, what is it?” She sounded tired and irritable.

“I’d like to learn to play the piano. Would you give me lessons?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that”, she said. “We would have to stay after school at least three days a week. I would charge 50 cents a lesson. Do you think your parents would pay for that? And another thing, until you get a piano of your own, you would have to stay after school and practice here. I would have to stay here while you practiced, which would be a great inconvenience for me. I’m a very busy person, you know. However, I would consider it."

At supper time, my hope of taking piano lessons was destroyed. I explained to Mother and Daddy what I planned, and what Miss Smith had said. Daddy looked down at his plate, and said softly, “That’s just not possible. We’ve had layoffs at the plant. I don’t know how much longer I will even have a job. We don’t have money for piano lessons, and Lord knows when we could ever buy you a piano.”

“That’s O.K., Daddy,” I said, as I fought back the tears.

The next day after school, I told Miss Smith what Daddy had said about the piano lessons. Miss Smith said, “If you are really serious about learning to play the piano, I will give you lessons three times a week. Every Saturday, I will expect you to repay me by doing little chores around my house.”

And so, we began. For the next two years, Miss Smith gave me piano lessons after school for three times a week. Every Saturday at 8:00 a.m., I would be at her big two-story house to do her chores. She made me pull weeds in the hot sun until my hands blistered. I polished her silver over and over again. I would take the silverware from it’s case every other week, and polish each piece. I’ll bet that silverware hadn’t been used in fifty years, but she’d make me polish it. I swept the floors. She insisted I scrub the hardwood floors on my knees with a brush. I cleaned that house top to bottom every Saturday. I washed, starched, and ironed all those cotton dresses of hers. The last thing I had to do before I could leave was to polish those little black shoes so they would be ready for Church the next morning. I would leave her house bone tired when it was almost dark. I was her slave, but I was learning to play the piano very well, and I loved that. She never once said, “Thank you, Mary. You do a fine job.”

One day, Miss Smith slipped on the ice and broke her hip. She was in the hospital for four weeks. When she got home, she sent me a letter asking me to come to see her. I went right away. Her nurse took me into Miss Smith’s bedroom. I almost didn’t recognize her. She had lost a lot of weight. Her long, white hair hung down around the pillows that had been propped under her head and shoulders. Her face had more wrinkles than I remembered. She motioned for me to come close to her bed.

Her voice was weak, not at all like Miss Smith’s. “The doctors told me I will be in bed for a very long time, Mary. Will you come and play the piano for me sometimes? You don’t have to work for me anymore, because I can’t give you lessons until I’m well again.”

This was a different Miss Smith from the one I knew. She looked so frail and helpless.

“Of course, Miss Smith, I will play for you.”

The next day, the nurse and I pushed her piano into the bedroom. We placed it under the double windows. Miss Smith would look out the windows, and stare at the sky while I played for her. I played all the beautiful old classics she had taught me. I was happy to be there with her, and she seemed happy to have me there with her. After a while, I would stop playing. I would brush her hair, read to her, or just sit quietly with her while she slept. Three afternoons a week we would be together.

Miss Smith wasn’t able to walk again for a whole year. Every Saturday I went to her house and did all the chores. I knew I didn’t have to keep working for her, but for some reason I just wanted to.

One day I hurried home from school to get my homework done so I could go and play for Miss Smith. Mother said, “Go and look in the living room, there is something there for you."

There in the middle of our living room stood a beautiful new piano! There was an envelope addressed to me on the top of the closed keyboard. The note inside read, “Your account for piano lessons is paid in full. I gave you lessons in piano, but you have given me a greater lesson. . . that of love and devotion. Thank you. Your friend forever, Miss Smith.”