O Henry

                         A Service of Love

   WHEN ONE LOVES ONES ART no service seems too hard.
   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.
   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.
   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
   Joe and Delia met in an atelier where a number of art and music 
students had gathered to discuss chiaroscuro, Wagner, music, 
Rembrandt's works pictures, Waldteufel, wall-paper, Chopin, and 
Oolong.
   Joe and Delia became enamoured 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.
   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.
   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.
   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.
   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 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.
   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's or else inconsiderable - the mutual 
help and inspiration; and - overlook my artlessness stuffed olives and 
cheese sandwiches at 11 p.m.
   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.
   For two or three days she went out canvassing for pupils. One 
evening she came home elated.
   `Joe, dear,' she said gleefully, `I've a pupil. And, oh, the 
loveliest people! General - General A. B. Pinkney's daughter - on 
Seventyfirst 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.
   `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.'
   `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.'
   Delia came and hung about his neck.
   `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.'
   `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.'
   `When one loves one's Art no service seems too hard,' said Delia.
   `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.'
   `I'm sure you will,' said Delia sweetly. `And now let's be thankful 
for General Pinkney and this veal roast.'
   During all of the next week the Larrabees had an early breakfast. 
Joe was 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.
   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 parlour.
   `Sometimes,' she said, a little wearily, `Clementina tries me. I'm 
afraid she doesn't practise 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.
   `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.'
   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.
   `Sold that water-colour of the obelisk to a man from Peoria,' he 
announced overwhelmingly
   `Don't joke with me,' said Delia - `not from Peoria!'
   `All the way. I wish you could see him, Dele. Fat man with a 
woollen 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.'
   `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.'
   `And filet mignon with champignons,' said Joe. `Where is the olive 
fork?'
On the next Saturday evening Joe reached home first. He spread his $18 
on the parlour table and washed what seemed to be a great deal of dark 
paint from his hands.
   Half an hour later l5elia arrived, her right hand tied up in a 
shapeless bundle of wraps and bandages.
   `How is this?' asked Joe after the usual greetings 
   Delia laughed, but not very joyously
   `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, 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.'
   `What's this?' asked Joe, taking the hand tenderly and pulling at 
some white strands beneath the bandages.
   `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. 
   `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?'
   `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 -'
   `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. 
   `What have you been doing for the .last two weeks, Dele?' he asked.
   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.
   `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.'
   `He wasn't from Peoria,' said Joe slowly
   `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?'
   `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.'
   `And then you didn't -'
   `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.
   And then they both laughed, and Joe began: 
   `When one loves one's Art no service seems -'
   But Delia stopped him with her hand on his lips. `No,' she said 
`just "When one loves." '