United States or Costa Rica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The fiddle's tune changed and the dance quickened. "I naturally thought," resumed I, with a smile meant to refer to the blond dancer, "that the madam must be away somewhere." My hearer grinned. "Oh, that ain't no sign. Boys will be boys. You know that, yo'se'f. An' o' co'se she know it. Oh, yass, she at home." "Well, I reckon I'll stop all night." I began to move on. His eyes followed greedily.
"It's got the cotton-fields and the slave days in it. It's got the whip and the stocks in it; it's got the cry of the old man that'd never see his children ag'in. That's what the fiddle's got in it." Suddenly, in an apparent outburst of anger, he swept down on the front door and drove the gathering crowd away. "Dis is a barber-shop," he said with an angry wave of his hand; "it ain't a circuse."
"There's a deal in what you say, Mr. Fuller," said the old man, who had a bearing of sad and gentle dignity, and gave, in a curious and not easily explainable way, the idea that he spoke but seldom and was something of a recluse. "There's a deal in what you say, Mr. Fuller, but the fiddle is not a thing as can be played like any ordinary instryment. A fiddle's like a wife, in a way of speaking.
As Roderick and Lawyer Ed drove homeward, down the moon-lit length of the Pine Road; they were surprised to hear ahead of them, within a few rods of Peter Fiddle's house, the sound of singing. Very wavering and uncertain, now loud and high, now dropping to a low wail, came the slow splendid notes of Kilmarnock to the sublime words of the 103rd psalm. The two in the buggy looked at each other.
"It's got the cotton-fields and the slave days in it. It's got the whip and the stocks in it; it's got the cry of the old man that'd never see his children ag'in. That's what the fiddle's got in it." Suddenly, in an apparent outburst of anger, he swept down on the front door and drove the gathering crowd away. "Dis is a barber-shop," he said with an angry wave of his hand; "it ain't a circuse."
Then the leader of the orchestra came to his place, and after a pause, the music began. "A fiddle's great value," John's neighbour whispered to him. "I'm a great hand at the Jew's harp myself!..." The music ceased, the lights were lowered in the theatre and the footlights were raised, throwing a great soft yellow glow on the picture of the Lakes of Killarney which decorated the drop-curtain.
They met in the middle, poised an instant on the top wave of rhythm and stepped back, every footfall, every movement, their very breathing, in time to the beat-beat-beat of the fiddle's air which filled the room as insistently as the odor of the pines. Mrs. Powers nodded her white head to it and tapped her foot.
"Right, the first guess!" laughed Gregory, "there's where I've been!" and in the cabin he explained all. "The fiddle's mended," he concluded. "You can play a tune on it by being careful." "But what's your tune?" asked his hearer; "you cannot go back to that island." "Yes, I'll be on it in a week with a schooner-load of cattle. I can get them on credit.
If you had hurt it I'd have hurt you, Mr. Fawe," Ingolby said with a grim smile. "That fiddle's got too much in it to waste it." "Mi Duvel! Mi Duvel!" gasped the Romany in his fury. "You can say that as much as you like, but if you play any more of your monkey tricks here, my Paganini, I will wring your neck," Ingolby returned, his six feet of solid flesh making a movement of menace.
A Thomas Jefferson, up-to-date; a John Randolph of the present day; the Lincoln of my own time; the ancestor of Fiddle's great-grandchildren." She rumpled his hair. "I like you as you are." He caught her hand and held it. "But you'd like me on a pedestal?" "If you'll let me help you carve it." He kissed the hand that he held.
Word Of The Day