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It was only the product of a mouth-organ, manipulated by a little black-eyed, French-Canadian hired boy, sitting on the fence by the brook; but there was music in the ragged urchin and it came out through his simple toy.
Then he took the princess by both hands, and they danced with all the little goblins and Jack-o'-lanterns in the room. The red spiders sprang here and there on the walls quite as merrily, and the flowers of fire appeared as if they were throwing out sparks. The owl beat the drum, the crickets whistled and the grasshoppers played the mouth-organ. It was a very ridiculous ball.
Masculine performance on any instrument, except a mouth-organ or a fiddle, which last was distinctly worldly, was regarded as rather inclining to effeminacy. But the men all sang, for, of course, it went without saying that every one could sing bass.
It tingled over Felix from head to foot; and, when Leon held out the mouth-organ with a fraternal grin of invitation, he snatched at it as a famished creature might snatch at food. Then, with it half-way to his lips, he paused.
In a few short minutes the little ceremony was over, and a musical genius played the wedding march on a mouth-organ so you'd know it anywhere. He followed that with God Save the King, and Tipperary, while Helen, looking more like an angel every minute, walked slowly down the aisle, shaking hands with the men. She came at last to one whose arms were both gone.
Nobody can think while you're hittin' it up like that. This ain't no prayer meetin', Bill." For answer Kilduff removed the mouth-organ to take a deep breath, blinked his small eyes, and began again in a still higher key. "Go slow, Terry," advised Rhinehart in a soft tone. "Kilduff ain't feelin' none too well tonight."
"Oh, tie that dog outside," yawned the Turk, stanch adherent of Carl, and therefore of Professor Frazer, but not imaginative. "Come on, young Kerl; I'll play you a slick little piece on the mouth-organ. Heh?" "Oh, thunder! I'm too restless to listen to anything except a cannon." Carl stumped to the window and pondered on the pool of water flooding the graying grass stems in the shabby yard.
Pablo, sitting comfortably on the grass, his back propped against the back of El Sabio, also caught the sound; and straightway began to play an accompaniment on his mouth-organ to Dennis's distant singing.
This, as they modestly trotted through the village, he tried to conceal in the palm of his hand, and he glared at a totally innocent passer-by whom he suspected of wanting to hear the mouth-organ. Mother didn't know of his mental struggles. She was thinking more about her feet.
"Guess we'll get out the old mouth-organ and have a little band-concert, admission five bucks, eh?" Something of the old command was in his voice. Mother actually needed his comfort against the black hours of storm! Though they used a very prosaic stove for cooking, the old farm-house fireplace still filled half the back of the kitchen, and this had become the center of their house.
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