London Fancys, Lizards, Yorkshire Spangles, Norwich Yellows, the Belgian Fancys, Border Fancys, Glocester Fancys, the Turncrest, the Green, the Cinnamon, the Yellow, the Pure White, he said. The traveler proceeded to lecture them about which canaries could best be coaxed to memorize such music. He pulled the flageolet out of the loop and launched into a prickly little étude, followed by a sprightly march-and then he quit, for the rain was getting in his ears. In the town square, he announced to the assembled men that he had brought the latest fashion: an instrument for training canaries to recite popular chansons. The traveler worried she might replace him if he stayed absent too long.
He missed her footsteps, how she meandered from room to room, hunting for her comb or extra pen nibs. Perhaps these music lovers would buy the rest of his inventory. Mireville’s reputation lured our traveler to the old stone bridge, which he crossed with hope, flageolet banging. They thought of the future owners of these goods with wonder: to want something-and have the means to send away for it! Every day the villagers snapped, nailed, or stitched parts of their work to someone else’s in an effort to export beauty to kindlier climes. The men made musical instruments, violins and violas and violoncellos and barrel organs.
The women of Mireville embraced their feminine calling to turn thread into bobbin lace: thick, sturdy pieces suited to tables and windows. Most crops sluiced themselves off their roots and died before producing any sort of yield, leaving limited options to the farmers: peas, watercress, the heartiest of tubers. The seasons cycled from foggy to gloomy, with an occasional spell of heartening summer haze. On this particular day, nearly a century before our story starts, it rained. He decided not to write home about how the flageolet banged his thigh and knee when he walked, nor did he remove it from the loop, because he missed his wife, who did the best she could. He kept his demonstration instrument tucked in a loop his wife had sewn onto his pants, lest it get mixed up with the ones in his pack. In Avril of 1718, a traveling salesman visited the drizzly village of Mireville, France, to sell the locals on the charms of the flageolet, a reedless predecessor of the clarinet.
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