IX.

Circumstances the next day seemed adverse to Skimpy’s scheme. Obadiah for some time past had not been musically disposed, and the violin had hung silent on the cabin wall in company with strings of red peppers, and bags of herbs, and sundry cooking utensils. That afternoon the spirit of melody within him was newly awakened.

Skimpy, who had been lurking about the place, watching his opportunity, was dismayed to see Obadiah come briskly out of the cabin door with the instrument in his hand, and establish himself in a rickety chair on the porch. He tilted this back on its hind-legs until he could lean against the wall, stuck the violin under his chin, and with his long lean arm in a fascinating crook, he began to bow away rapturously. They were very merry tunes that Obadiah played—at least the tempo was lively and required a good many quick jerks and nods of the head, and much flirting and shaking of his long red mane to keep up with it. Occasionally his bow would glance off the strings with a very dashing effect, when he would hold it at arm’s-length, and grin with satisfaction, and wink triumphantly at Skimpy, who had come and seated himself on the steps of the porch hard by. He looked up from under the wide brim of his hat somewhat wistfully at Obadiah.

The violinist was happier for an audience, although he could have sat alone till sunset, with one leg doubled up under the other, which swayed loosely from the tilted elevation of the chair, and played for his own appreciative ear, and found art sufficient unto itself. But applause is a pleasant concomitant of proficiency and he loved to astonish Skimpy. His hat had fallen on the floor, and the kitten, fond of queer places to sleep, had coiled herself in the crown, and now and then lifted her head and looked out dubiously at Skimpy. Just above Obadiah was a shelf on which stood a pail of water and a gourd. What else there was up there an inquisitive young rooster was trying to find out, having flown over the heedless musician, still blithely sawing away.

“He oughter hev his wings cropped, so ez he couldn’t fly around that a-way,” said Skimpy suddenly. “Oughtn’t he, Oby?”

Now one would imagine that when Obadiah was harmoniously disposed all the chords of his nature would be attuned to the fine consonance which so thrilled him. On the contrary the vibrations of his temper were most discordant when his mood was most melodic. He had one curt effective rejoinder for any remark that might seek to interrupt him.

“Hesh up!” he said, tartly.

His mother, a tall gaunt woman of an aggressively neat appearance, was hanging out the clothes to dry on the althea bushes in the sun. She was near enough to overhear the conversation, and she suddenly joined in it.

“Nobody oughter want ter tie up other folkses tongues till they be right sure they hev got no call ter be tongue-tied tharself.”

To this reproof Obadiah refrained from making any unfilial reply, but scraped away joyously till Skimpy, longing for silence and the fiddle, felt as if the mountains shimmering through the haze were beginning to clumsily dance, and experienced a serious difficulty in keeping his own feet still, so nervous had he become in his eagerness to lay hold of the bow himself.

Sunset would be kindling presently—he gazed anxiously toward the western sky across the vast landscape, for the cabin was perched well up on the mountain slope, and the privilege of overlooking the long stretches of valley and range and winding river was curtailed only by the limits of vision. The sun was as yet a glittering focus of dazzling white rays, but they would be reddening soon, and doubtless his new friend was already waiting for him at the sulphur spring.

“I wisht ye’d lemme hev that thar fiddle a leetle while, Oby,” he said suddenly, his manner at once beguiling for the sake of the favor he sought, and reproachful for the denial he foresaw.

Obadiah’s arm seemed electrified—there was one terrific shriek from the cat-gut, and then his quivering hand held the bow silent above the strings.

“Air ye turned a bodacious idjit, Skimp?” he cried, positively appalled by the audacity of the request. “I wouldn’t hev ye a-ondertakin’ ter play the fool with this hyar fiddle, fur”—he hesitated, but his manner swept away worlds of entreating bribes—“fur _nuthin’_.”

The young rooster, finding that there was nothing upon the shelf except the water-pail and gourd, and hardly caring to appropriate them, had made up his mind to descend. After the manner of his kind, however, he teetered about on the edge of the shelf in some excitement, unable to determine just at what spot to attempt the leap. Twice or thrice he spread his bronzed red and yellow wings, stretched his neck, and bowed his body down—to rise up exactly where he was before. At last the adventurous fowl decided to trust himself to providence. With a squawk at his own temerity he fluttered awkwardly off the shelf, and almost alighted on the musician’s head, giving a convulsive clutch at it with his claws as he flopped past. There was a distressful whine from the fiddle-strings in Obadiah’s sudden perversion of the bow; he had forgotten all about the rooster on the shelf; he jumped back with a galvanic jerk, as he felt the fluttering wings about his head and the scrape of the yellow claws, and emitted a sharp cry of startled dismay.

Bose, who had been lying close beside a clumsy wooden box on rockers, growled surlily, fixing a warning eye on the boy; then his voice rose into a gruff bark. There was no longer use in his keeping quiet and guarding the cradle. Beneath the quilts was a great commotion; the personage enveloped therein, although sleeping according to infantile etiquette with its head covered, had no mind to be thus eclipsed when broad awake. There presently emerged a pair of mottled fists, the red head of the Sawyer tribe, an indignant, frowning red face, and a howl so vigorous that it seemed almost visible. It had no accompaniment of tears, for the baby wept for rage rather than grief, and sorrow was the share of those who heard him.

Mrs. Sawyer turned and looked reproachfully at the group on the porch.

“’Twarn’t _me_, mam, ’twar the rooster ez woke the baby,” Obadiah exclaimed, seeking to exculpate himself.

Bose was stretching himself to a surprising length, all his toe-nails elongated as he spread out his paws, and still half-growling and half-barking at Obadiah, the utterance complicated with a yawn.

“’Twar the rooster,” reiterated Obadiah—“the rooster, an’—an’—Bose.”

“’Twarn’t Bose!” exclaimed Skimpy, loyally.

“Hesh up!” said the dulcet musician.

“Needn’t tell me nuthin’ ag’in Bose—I know Bose!” said Mrs. Sawyer emphatically—thus a good name is ever proof against detraction. “Hang up that thar fiddle, Oby,” she continued. “I wonder the baby ain’t been woked up afore considerin’ the racket ye kep’ up. An’ go down yander ter the ’tater patch an’ see ef yer dad don’t need ye ter holp dig the ’taters. I don’t need ye hyar—an’ that fiddle don’t need ye nuther. I be half crazed with that thar everlastin’ sawin’ an’ scrapin’ o’ yourn, keep-in’ on ez ef yer muscles war witched, an’ ye _couldn’t_ quit.”

She sat down on a chair beside the cradle and began to rock it with her foot, readjusting the while the quilts over the head of the affronted infant, who straightway flung them off again that he might have more room for his vocalization.

Obadiah went obediently and hung up the fiddle, and presently looking down the slope Skimpy saw him wending his way toward the potato patch.

“I dunno how kem Oby ’lows that thar old fiddle b’longs to him, more’n it do ter the rest o’ we-uns,” Skimpy observed discontentedly, when the baby’s vociferations had subsided into a sort of soliloquy, keeping time with the rhythmic motions of the rockers. It was neither mutter nor wail nor indicative of unhappiness, but it expressed a firmly perverse resolution not to go to sleep again if he could help it, and rose instantly into a portentous howl if the monotonous rocking was intermitted for a moment.

“’Twar yer gran’dad’s fiddle,” said Mrs. Sawyer. “That’s the only sure enough owner it ever hed—he never gin it ter nobody in partic’lar whenst he died. An’ it jes’ hung thar on the wall till Obadiah ’peared ter take a kink ter play it.”

Obadiah doubtless considered himself entitled to the fiddle by the right of primogeniture—though Obadiah did not call it by this name. As Skimpy reflected upon the nature of his brother’s claim he felt that there was no reason why he should not insist on sharing the ownership. It was not Obadiah’s fiddle—it belonged to the family.

The baby’s voice sank gradually to a jerky monotone, then to a murmur and so to silence. The rockers of the cradle jogged thumpingly up and down the floor for a few minutes longer. And then Mrs. Sawyer betook herself once more to her task of hanging out the clothes, while Bose guarded the cradle, and Skimpy still sat on the steps, his elbows on his knees, and his pondering head held between his hands.

The lengthening yellow sunbeams poured through the cabin door, venturing gradually up the walls to where the silent instrument hung, filling it with a rich glow and playing many a fantasy though never stirring a string.