"Do you burst in on everyone's home like this?" Marian interrupted fiercely, "prying into personal affairs? We're not interested." She turned her back, starting into the house.

"Marian!" cried Mrs. Paroo.

"Well, that's one for and one against," said Harold cheerfully. "Now why not let the boy's father decide?"

Marian had the screen door open but she now turned abruptly, looking squarely into Harold's eyes. "The boy's father is dead. Anything else?"

Harold's broad smile faded.

~The Music Man by Meredith Willson, page 79

XXX

Harold winced a bit as he recalled the memory of that heated conversation with Marian on her mother's back porch. So much for smoothing things over with the bellicose librarian! Instead, he'd managed to really put his foot in it and make her loathe him even more than she already did.

While the smooth-talking conman had long ago accepted the inevitability that nearly every woman he charmed would eventually come to despise him, he wasn't used to being hated before he achieved what he was after. But as frustrated as Harold was with the way his visit turned out, he could only place the blame for this latest failure squarely on his shoulders. He had been too careless, too sure of his winning appeal. And it had been an easy trap to fall into – after the jovial but no-nonsense Mrs. Paroo fell so neatly under his spell, he figured her daughter would soon follow suit. It would have been wise to pump Mrs. Shinn and her ladies for a little more information about the librarian's familial circumstances before paying a call to Miss Paroo; given the pain Harold still nursed over his own mother's passing, he couldn't fault Marian for lashing out so harshly at the fellow who was indeed prying into sensitive affairs.

That night, the conman avoided going to bed at all, not wanting to find out what kind of dream was in store for him now. Unfortunately, there was no late-night watering hole, dance hall or other good-time place in this God-fearing little burg that a fellow could go to forget all about his cares, so Harold was left to the merciless sort of solitude that bred nothing but one unwelcome reflection after another. But as the fly-by-night salesman was never one to brood, even in the midst of misfortune, he did as he had always done and kept moving, pacing back and forth in the tiny room until he could no longer muster up the energy to do so. However, even though Harold finally gave in to the temptation to lie down just a little after midnight, he refused to take off his suit-coat or even his shoes, hoping the discomfort of remaining fully clothed would prevent him from falling asleep.

However, the events of the afternoon had taken such a toll on his vigor that he couldn't help slipping right into slumber as soon as he closed his eyes. And just as Harold surmised, there was to be no respite for him in repose – he soon found himself running through a vast cornfield. This was no leisurely constitutional; he ran frantically and heedlessly, desperate to escape the thing that was chasing him. He didn't know what it was exactly, but he knew that it was more horrible than even he could imagine, and he mustn't turn around to see it.

Although it had been nearly a decade since the conman had this dream, it was a familiar one, a nightmare he'd had intermittently in his younger years. So even as Harold kept his eyes resolutely trained on the murky brown horizon ahead, he knew it was only a matter of time before some obstacle would impede his flight, rendering him stuck in place and forcing him to finally look back. Occasionally, Harold managed to wake himself up before this horror occurred, but most of the time, the nightmare triumphed, and he was impelled by a will stronger than his own to behold his dark pursuer.

Each time he had this dream, the charlatan saw something different. Sometimes it was his father, covered in ice and glaring at him with accusing eyes. Sometimes it was his mother, covered in mud, gazing at him with shame and loathing. Sometimes he'd get a double whammy and it was both of his parents, wizened and covered in cobwebs, their expressions filled with regret for ever having him in the first place. Sometimes – though very rarely – it was Eileen, glaring at him with eyes just as red as the blood gushing out of the knife wound in her side.

But the worst part of facing these inexorable judges was that Harold was never allowed to plead his case, or even explain himself. He'd try his damnedest to pierce the terrible silence, but if he dared to so much as open his mouth, his father shattered into ice, his mother disintegrated into dust, and Eileen exploded into a crimson puddle. And then, as the conman was sprayed with a stinging shower of ice, sand or blood, he'd hear their harsh, guttural, disembodied voices listing his crimes against them. If he tried to run or cover his ears or shout back a defense of his deeds, they'd get louder and louder, until his ears rang and his head throbbed and his body vibrated and he feared he would shatter into pieces. But he never did; just before his destruction could occur, Harold mercifully jolted awake.

However, the fly-by-night salesman was in for a new treat tonight. At first, his nightmare proceeded in its usual, predictable fashion, the vegetation pressing closer to him until it became so dense he could barely navigate through it. But Harold continued to barrel forward, even as the stalks tore his suit-coat, snagged his hair and scratched his arms. Somehow, he managed to finally burst into a clearing. However, before he could so much as smile at this small triumph, the ground turned to quicksand, and he sank right into it. Knowing that the moment of truth would soon be upon him, the conman nevertheless struggled to free himself from the muck as the malevolent force pursuing him moved in for the kill. This only made him sink even deeper, and when Harold was buried all the way up to his waist, he finally stopped fighting the inevitable and turned around.

Marian Paroo stood before him, dressed in her green-and-gold gown, which had somehow become dirty, tattered and threadbare beyond repair. Her brilliant honey-gold curls had also lost their luster, hanging about her shoulders in a distressingly matted and tangled clump. To complete this wretched tableau, a circle of crows hovered around her head like an evil halo, pecking and clawing at her hair and ensemble and making it even more disheveled. But the librarian seemed heedless of this disturbance, paying no more attention to the birds than if they were merely miniscule gnats. Instead, her attention was focused entirely on Harold, and she gazed at him with the same imperious but wounded loathing as she had during their run-in on her back porch.

Such a vision would have been disconcerting enough to behold, but Marian was not alone. Winthrop stood a few steps behind her; an ashen cipher of a lad with dark rings around his eyes, staring glumly at the man who'd hustled his mother into buying him a cornet that he would never learn how to play. Harold wasn't sure which sight was worse; the distraught librarian or the bereft shell of a boy. Although he knew this was his cue to try to explain himself, Harold refused to speak. What good would it do? But apparently, his sullen silence proved just as offensive, because Marian began to hurl accusations at him, insisting that he knew her father was dead and he had simply pretended ignorance in order to bamboozle and distress her family. Genuinely affronted by such a charge – he honestly hadn't known Mr. Paroo was dead, and he'd felt a real pang of abashed sympathy when Marian informed him of that – Harold opened his mouth, intending to vigorously defend himself, after all. But he snapped his jaws shut when he once again caught sight of Winthrop, who continued to hover mutely in the background, tears streaming down his cheeks as his sister reprimanded the deceitful scoundrel who'd reduced their family to this pitiful state.

It was only when Marian's crows, filled with the fury of their mistress, began to make a swift and deadly beeline for Harold that he finally awoke, gasping and clutching at his bedclothes, which had somehow come loose and were now tangled hopelessly around his legs and waist.

XXX

When Harold finally managed to free himself from the covers, he leaped out of bed and threw off his sweat-soaked clothes. Once he was stripped down to his union suit, he opened the room's only window and sighed in relief as the cool night air washed over him. As a teenager, he was often too busy fashioning grand dreams about the future to be bothered with his evening ablutions, and his mother used to affectionately remonstrate him whenever he fell asleep fully clothed, cautioning him that buttoned-up blouses and tightly-closed collars caused nightmares. Still, as was a strong-willed youth's wont, he disregarded this sage admonition as a silly old wives' tale and did just as he pleased. But his mother quietly got her way in the end; no matter what state Harold was in when sleep finally claimed him, he always awoke with an unfastened collar and a cool cloth bathing his forehead. Although he found these stealthy ministrations rather overbearing at the time, such loving gestures were what he missed most when he set out on his own and realized just how lonely a traveling salesman's life could be…

Harold swallowed hard as a lump came into his throat, and he abruptly halted this line of thought. It would do him absolutely no good to ruminate about the past. Right now, he had far more pressing matters to consider. For the plain truth of the matter was that Professor Harold Hill, bandleader extraordinaire, had a big problem. If he couldn't figure out how to win over Marian Paroo, the promising racket he was presently running in River City would soon come crashing down around him.

So how was he to accomplish such a feat, which seemed to grow more impossible the harder he tried to achieve it? Harold began pacing the room as he reviewed the events of his latest unsuccessful venture to win, if not the librarian's heart, her complicity in his con. But that was precisely the problem – if he didn't win her over wholeheartedly, he certainly wouldn't gain her cooperation. Marian Paroo was one of those rare women who wouldn't be hushed up; her silence could not be bought with intimidation, flattery, or even love.

But would she consider remaining silent for repayment in kind, as a personal favor to the man who did her brother a good turn? As querulous and off-putting as their interlude was, Harold had gained a great deal of insight into the librarian's heart. Marian Paroo not only loved her odd duck of a younger brother, she was fiercely protective of his well-being. Thus, it stood to reason that she would view the music professor's pie-in-the-sky promises of a River City boys' band as adding insult to injury, when the lad had already suffered such a great loss. But what if Harold could get the stubborn librarian to see that maybe his "musical tricks" weren't as deceitful as they seemed? Deep down, Harold believed there was always a band, even if he didn't exactly have the know-how to lead one… but that was beside the point. If he could wow Winthrop with a shiny cornet and visions of glory, it might just give the boy the much-needed push he required to shed his morose shell and embrace the many good things life still had to offer. Winthrop was far too young to give up on the world, and even if Harold couldn't quite deliver on every last promise he made to River City's youth and their parents, he could at least get the lad to think of something else besides the father he was sorely missing.

And if brightening her brother's attitude didn't cause Marian Paroo to reconsider her opinion of Professor Harold Hill and his methods, maybe he could make life a little rosier for her, too. While his words might not have counted for much with the skeptical librarian, everyone else in town was an easy mark to be won over by a pretty speech. The fly-by-night salesman's eloquence had quickly swayed even the indomitable Mrs. Shinn; perhaps she and her ladies might also be made to see differently about Chaucer, Rabelais and Balzac, and all the other "dirty" books they'd so roundly denounced earlier. He'd get right on that tomorrow…

Now that Harold had a concrete plan, he laid back down on the bed and allowed fatigue to overtake his senses once more. Fortunately, his subconscious must have approved of his intended course of action, because his slumber remained untroubled for the rest of the night.