Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

are more ways than one of doing this and he -- well I don’t think he knows how. Grinning and tee-heeing the while, he hauled out all the soft popular songs that were ever written and showed them to us with such remarks as “Isn’t that a peach” “Ain’t that cute” that I grew sick. I wondered too that he should show them, for he knew all the classical music there is I guess – in fact I don’t think there is a pianist equal to him in town or around here; he even plays the scale with expression! I suppose I shouldn’t talk about him when he condescended to try to entertain us – but –
Soon Kinkie came in and Mr. Andrews announced that he was going to take his lesson. We wished them that we were any place but there – yes even in Guinea or Dixie. When he started out with “Fa – Fa - Fa - Fa - Fa - Fa - Fa – Fa” I considered calling a doctor: it sounded like some dying cat or some hound in distress. But after jumping all over the scale for a while he switched off to “No – no – no – etc” I thought “not a cat or a dog – then it must have been a pig: and winked at Bill, who sat on a stool choking with laughter and running over with disgust. They finally ended up with Kinkie singing a song which wasn’t so bad: