Summary
Summary of A Piano in “Arkansaw” by Thomas Bangs Thorpe
A Piano in “Arkansaw” is about the small town of Hardscrabble, and a rumor about a piano. The piano was said to be coming to Arkansas from somewhere in New England. Everyone in the town had heard of a piano, but no one knows exactly what a piano is. The town’s people watch the new family move in, and when they don’t see anything resembling a piano, they conclude that the piano must have injured one of its legs during the trip down to Arkansas. Moses Mercer, the son of a state senator and “the oracle of the renowned village of Hardscrabble” returns from a hunting trip, and is unimpressed about the news of the piano. He brags about having seen pianos in the capital, and about being part of “fashionable society”. He explains to the towns people that a piano is a musical instrument (and not an animal as they had thought), but this only makes everyone more curious. Jim Cash persuades Moses to take him to the house where the piano allegedly is, but no one is home. Cash sees something through the window and asks Moses what it is. Moses tells him that it’s the piano. Cash runs back to town and tells everyone that he’s seen the piano and even heard music come out of it. This news makes Cash even more popular than Moses. Later that week the Doolittle’s, the family with the piano, host a well-attended party at their house. Patience, the daughter, plays a song on the piano for everyone, but Cash and Moses are both confused, because what Patience plays looks nothing like what they saw through the window. Cash asks Patience about it, and she says that they saw the washing machine, exposing Moses’ lies about knowing all about pianos. After the party pianos become more and more common in Hardscrabble, and Moses becomes less and less popular, until everyone forgets about him.