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On the plains of India, men may often be seen for hours together, flying what with us are children's kites; and I procured a jews'-harp from Tibet. These are not the toys of savages, but the amusements of people more than half-civilised, and with whom we have had indirect communication from the earliest ages.
"Better get out dry socks and moccasins, young gentlemen," said he. "You're not quite as tough as Moise yonder." Moise, happy and care-free, had not as yet started to make a fire, but was sitting on a rock playing earnestly at a jews'-harp which he carried in his pocket.
A primitive jews'-harp, universally found among the tribes, is played to frighten away antohs, and so is the flute. A kindly antoh may enter a man and become his guardian spirit, to whom he occasionally offers food, but it never remains long because that would make the man insane.
In the doorway between the other rooms sat the eldest brother playing his fiddle, the Irishman twanging a jews'-harp, and "Frenchy" with the bones; and on each side of them danced the guests. The newly made bride and her husband led the quadrille in the sitting-room, opposite a trooper and the neighbor woman; the Swede had as his partner the new teacher, a young lady from St.
Several of the braves showed great interest in Snap's jews'-harp and repeatedly asked him for it. Finally the Mormon grudgingly lent it to a curious Indian, who in trying to play it went through such awkward motions and made such queer sounds that his companions set upon him and fought for possession of the instrument. Then Snap, becoming solicitous for its welfare, jumped into the fray.
The cup was nicked and battered, bright on the sides, moss-green on the bottom. When Hare drank from it he understood. That evening there was rude merriment around the campfire. Snap Naab buzzed on his jews'-harp and sang. He stirred some of the younger braves to dancing, and they stamped and swung their arms, singing, "hoya-heeya-howya," as they moved in and out of the firelight.
"I I played the I tried to play " Fortunately he checked himself; he had been about to offer the information that he had failed to master the jews'-harp in his boyhood. "No, I'm not a musician," he contented himself with saying. "What?" Dr. Kraft's surprise increased. "Young man, you are fortunate! I play for Miss Vertrees; she comes always alone. You are the first. You are the first one EVER!"
Peter answered pretty snappy: "'Cause there's only two or three jobs that a long-haired image like him could hold down," he says. "I'd call him a musician if he could play 'Bedelia' on a jews'-harp; but he can't, so's he's got to be a poet." And a poet he was for the next week or so.
Fred Kaler was so excited he tried to played a mouth organ, a jews'-harp and a tin flute, all at the same time, with results anything but musical, while Will Slade stuttered as he never had before. "What will we do for a final wind-up?" asked Sam. "Let it be something worthy of the name of Washington Hall," exclaimed Jack.
The lover's "jews'-harp," made both of bamboo and of brass, is found throughout the Bontoc area. It is played near to and in the olag wherein the sweetheart of the young man is at the time. The instrument, called in Bontoc "ab-a'-fu," is apparently primitive Malayan, and is found widespread in the south seas and Pacific Ocean.
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