Maggie Sylvester had been my mother’s piano teacher and for three traumatic years would be mine.

Thursday, April 26, 2001

Maggie Sylvester had been my mother’s piano teacher and for three traumatic years would be mine. Mrs. Sylvester had been born and reared in Ireland. I suspect that during our three-year odyssey there might have been moments when she wished she had stayed there.

She lived in a stately brick house, fringed with ivy, sharing her household with a bachelor son, a year or so older than my father; a widowed daughter and two granddaughters. The younger of the granddaughters was a year younger than I, the elder six or seven years older.

From my point of view the most important member of the household was Mrs. Sylvester’s housekeeper, Lil. She must have had another name, but I never knew it. Any woman in town who could afford a housekeeper cast covetous eyes on Lil. It was she who polished and waxed and brought a shining order into the most chaotic of rooms.

Women who couldn’t afford a housekeeper would have braved an extra decade in purgatory for the recipe to her burnt-sugar cake. It was famous not only in our town, but throughout the county. It was Lil’s family recipe, though, and not obtainable.

Despite the difference in their ages, there was a warm and abiding friendship between Mrs. Sylvester and my mother. They both loved music, they were both perfectionists, and they both had a degree of contempt for mediocrity.

At six years old, when my formal musical education began, I was not a particularly articulate child. If I could have framed the words to express my philosophy regarding mediocrity I would have said that since in this great, big wonderful world someone had to be mediocre it might just as well be me.

Fortunately it was not a point of view I ever shared with either my mother or Mrs. Sylvester. There was enough strain on my relationship with the two of them anyway. I resented every minute I had to practice. Once I overheard one of my friend’s mothers telling a neighbor that she would never make a child of hers take music lessons or practice.

&uot;It can make a child hate music for life,&uot; she said.

When I carried this tidbit hopefully back to my mother, she simply regarded me with a complete lack of enthusiasm and said, &uot;It’s a chance I’ll have to take.&uot;

Mrs. Sylvester wasn’t content with my playing the notes correctly. She was always talking nonsense about my holding my hands like &uot;little bridges.&uot; On one occasion when the little bridges weren’t forthcoming she actually snatched my hands right off the keyboard. Snatched them mind you like a great taloned eagle swooping down on a poor little lamb.

I didn’t just cry. I pointed my nose ceilingward and howled like a wolf cub crying out in desperation to his pack. And lo! the pack came. At least Lil came. She caught me up in her arms, fixed an accusing gaze on Mrs. Sylvester and snarled, &uot;What did you do to her?&uot;

It was at that point that I realized that I’d scared my teacher as much as she’d scared me. Life became more simple after that. If you had a perfect lesson Mrs. Sylvester gave you a gold star. When you acquired 15 gold stars you got a card with the picture of a famous composer on the front and a little biographical sketch on the back.

Up until now my gold stars had been scarce. Now I found that if I said, in a most melancholy voice, &uot;No gold star?&uot; and at the same time began to point my nose ceilingward a gold star was forthcoming. I had drawers full of little lives of composers.

Before long my mother let me go to the teacher I had wanted to go to in the first place. I know it was very hard for her to do so. Years later I asked what had caused her to give way. It was out of character.

&uot;It was very hard,&uot; she admitted. &uot;From the day you were born, Maggie Sylvester and I looked forward to the time when you would become her pupil. She was the best teacher in town and I wanted you to have the best.

&uot;But I think she was getting old and little lax. All those gold stars she kept giving you for perfect lessons …&uot;

&uot;You didn’t think they were perfect?&uot; I asked.

&uot;Not even close,&uot; said my mother.

Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column appears Thursdays.