CHAPTER IX. Bumbletree’s Bass-Horn.

From the thick limbs of the maples came the discordant chatter of the cricket, the katydid and the tree-frog; from the creek beyond the mill the hoarse bellow of the bull-frog; from the darkening sky the shrill call of the night-hawk; and out of the woods across the flats the plaintive cry of the whippoorwill and the hoot of the owl. It was the evening chorus, but the loungers on the store porch did not hear it, for to them it was a part of the night’s stillness. But when, wafted across the meadows from the hills beyond, the notes of a horn sounded faint and clear, the Chronic Loafer, who for a long time had been smoking his pipe in silence, cried, “What’s that?”

“Slatter up the Dingdang,” said the Storekeeper. He was sitting on the steps.

“No, it ain’t; it’s Nellie Grey,” said the School Teacher in a voice that brooked no contradiction. Then in a deep bass he began singing,

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“Oh, me little Nellie Grey, they have taken her away,
An’ I’ll never see me darlin’ any more,
I’m a-settin’ be the river with——”

“You’re a-settin’ on my porch,” cried the Storekeeper, for he was nettled at having had his knowledge of music questioned. “Sam Butter can’t blow that tune, an’ he has ben out every night a-practisin’ ‘Slatter up the Dingdang!’”

The music on the hill ceased, leaving no tangible ground on which the debate could be continued. The Chronic Loafer had too long been the butt of the pedagogue’s cutting sarcasm to miss this opportunity of scoring him.

“Ef that ain’t a good un,” he roared. “Why, you uns doesn’t know nawthin’ ’bout tunes, Teacher. Jim Clock he was een last night an’ hear Sam a-blowin’ that wery piece. He sayd it was ‘Slatter up the Dingdang,’ an’ I conjure that Jim knows, fer he is ’bout the best bass-horn player they is.”

The Storekeeper feared that this support from the Loafer might somewhat prejudice his own case in the minds of the others, so he ventured, “Not the best they is.”

“Well, the best they is in Pennsylwany,” said the Loafer.

“There are some ignoramuses don’t know nothin’,” exclaimed the Teacher. It was dark, but by the light of the lantern that hung in the window the men could see that he was gazing[99] meaningly at his adversary. “But I know some that knows less than nothin’. The best horn-blower they is! Why, where’s your Rubensteins, your Paddyrewskies, your Pattis?”

He stopped, for he saw that the mention of these names had had the desired effect on his audience, as there was a wise wagging of heads.

But the Loafer was irrepressible. “Why,” he retorted, “Patti ain’t a horn-player. He’s a singer. I was readin’ a piece in the paper ’bout him jest last week. An’ ez fer ole Rube Stein, he never played nawthin’ but checkers.”

“Well, can’t a man both sing an’ play the horn?” the Teacher snapped.

“Perfessor, I agree with ye, I agree with ye entirely.” The Tinsmith had been silent hitherto, on the end of the bench. Now he leaned into view, resting an elbow on his knee and supporting his head with his hand. “Jim Clock don’t know no more ’bout blowin’ a bass-horn then my ole friend, Borax Bumbletree. Borax he knowd jest that leetle he was fired outen the Kishikoquillas In’epen’en’ Ban’. He come of a musical fam’ly, too. His mother an’ pap use to play the prettiest kind o’ duets on the melodium an’ ’cordine. His sister Amandy Lucy an’ his brother Hiram could sing like nightingales an’ b’longed to the choir at Happy Grove Church. It seems like Borax was left out in the distributin’ o’ music[100] in that fam’ly, an’ consequent it went hard with him. ’Henever strangers was at the house it was allus, ‘Mr. Bumbletree, do play the melodium,’ or, ‘Now, Amanda Lucy, sing one o’ your beautiful pieces,’ an’ all that. Poor Borax, he jest set an’ moped.

“Final he ’lowed he’d give the fam’ly a s’prise an’ learn the bass-horn, cal’latin’ to make up be hard hustlin’ what he’d missed be natur’—the knowledge of the dif’rence ’tween a sharp an’ a flat, a note an’ a bar, a treble an’ a soprany, an’ all them things. He begin be j’inin’ the In’pen’en’ Ban’. Fer six weeks he practised hard, an’ at last he did git to playin’ a couple o’ pieces. But the other fellys in the ban’ was continual’ complainin’ that Borax didn’t keep no kind o’ time; an’ not only that, but he drownded ’em all out, fer he could make a heap o’ noise. They sayd they wouldn’t play with him no more tell he learned to blow time. Borax was clean discouraged, but he didn’t give up. He practised six weeks more an’ tried it with the ban’ boys agin. They sayd now that he didn’t know pitch an’ ruined their pieces a-bellerin’ way down in A ’hen they was blowin’ up in high C. He was pretty well cut up, but ’lowed he’d quit.

“I think he meant what he sayd an’ ’ud ’a’ kep’ his promise ef it hedn’t ’a’ ben that a woman interfered with his good intentions. She was Pet Parsley—Widdy Parsley, who lived with her[101] mother back in Buzzard Walley. Borax hed a shine fer her afore she merried, an’ after she become a widdy he was wus ’an ever. One night at a ban’ festival, ’hen she was standin’ sellin’ at the ice-crim counter, he was a-jollyin’ her. Now he noticed that young Bill Hooker, who’d tuk his place in the ban’, was makin’ eyes at her over the top o’ his bass-horn while he was playin’. That near drove Bumbletree mad, fer him an’ Bill hed ben runnin’ neck an’ neck, an’ he knowd they was approachin’ the string.

“‘Don’t Mr. Hooker play gran’?’ sais Pet kind o’ timid like.

“‘Well, I don’t know,’ answers Borax, ‘I’ve heerd better.’

“‘Oh, hev ye,’ sais she, kind o’ perkin’ up her nose. ’I ’low you’re jealous. Can you play at all?’

“‘Well, can I?’ sais Borax. ‘Why, I can blow all ’round him.’

“‘I’d like to hear you,’ sais Pet. ‘Won’t you come an’ blow fer me sometim’?’

“‘I will,’ he answers, wery determined.

“He went home that night bound to git time an’ pitch together. He started to practise ’round the house but his fam’ly objected. The missus ’lowed she could never play the ’cordine with sech a bellerin’ goin’ on. Amandy Lucy went so fur ez to say it ’ud ruin her voice. But that didn’t stop Borax. He sayd he’d practise ’way from[102] the house. Every night after the feedin’ was done he use to take his horn, his music marks an’ a lantern, an’ go out on the hill ahint the barn. There, settin’ on a lawg, with the lantern hangin’ on a saplin’, he’d blow away. Many a night that summer ez I set over at our placet on the next ridge, I’d hear Borax a boom-boom-boomin’ to git the time. The big tones ’ud go echoin’ way over in the mo’ntain. Oncet in a while he’d hit it good, an’ I tell you uns it sounded pretty to hear them notes a-rollin’ deep acrosst the gut, a-sighin’ th’oo the trees an’ a-dyin’ way off in the woods.

“Then he tuk up pitch. He blowed pitch fer a week an’ then tried pitch an’ time together. I thot he was doin’ pretty well. Still them ban’ boys wasn’t satisfied. They sayd he didn’t go up an’ down right, an’ that they couldn’t hev him a-blowin’ ’way at pitch an’ time an’ never makin’ no new notes. He ’lowed to me that they was a heap to learn ’bout blowin’ a bass-horn, but he was goin’ to git it ef it ’ud only be of uset in the next worl’.

“At nights I could see his light a-twinklin’ in the woods acrosst the gut an’ hear him tryin’ to blow time an’ pitch an’ ups an’ downs all at oncet. He’d git his wind fixed to blow A, an’ out ’ud come a C; or he’d try fer a D an’ land an E. He ’lowed to me oncet that sometim’ he thot[103] mebbe it was willed that he was never to git a tune. But he kep’ at it.

“Now Bill Hooker hed ben to Horrisburg that summer an’ got him a brown cady hat. That was a new kind o’ headgear ’round Kishikoquillas an’ it cot on wonderful well. All the boys ’lowed they’d git ’em, but tell they had a chancet o’ buyin’ one they got to depend on Bill fer the loan o’ hisn ’hen they was goin’ out shinin’. So Hooker wasn’t s’prised one night ’hen Borax Bumbletree drove up to his placet an’ ’lowed mebbe Hooker mightn’t like to loan him his cady, ez he was goin’ callin’. Bill allus was obligin’ an’ thot no harm ’hen he watched Borax a-drivin’ away with his cady settin’ way up on top o’ his head. Bumbletree hitched his buckboard to a saplin’ on the edge o’ Pet Parsley’s clearin’. Then he got his horn out from in under the seat, fixed himself on a stump ’bout fifty feet from the house, put up his music marks so the moonlight shone on ’em, an’ begin to play. He started the serynade with ‘Soft th’oo the Eventide,’ that bein’ sentymental an’ his most famil’ar piece. He put his whole heart into the work an’ was soon blowin’ time an’ pitch an’ ups an’ downs all at oncet. The lamp that hed ben settin’ in the windy went out—that was all to show he’d ben heard. He blowed ‘Pull fer the Shore, Sailor.’ No sign o’ life in the house. He blowed ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’ Still no sign. He then[104] begin all over agin with ‘Soft th’oo the Eventide.’ Be this time the whole chicken-house hed j’ined in, an’ the cows was takin’ a hand too. He was desp’rit, dissypinted fearful an’ all used up. So he went home.

“You take a reg’lar thief. He knows they’s only one eend to thievin’—jail. An’ he’ll keep on stealin’ tell he gits there. Take a reg’lar murderer. He knows they’s only one eend to murder—the galluses; yit he’ll continyer murderin’ tell he gits there. So it is with a reg’lar man. He knows they’s only one result o’ bein’ in lawv—to be merried or git the mitten. An’ yit he’ll keep right on tell he gits one or the other. So it was with Borax Bumbletree. He hed no reason to think he’d git anything but the mitten, yit he went right up to Pet Parsley’s next night to take his punishment. He tol’ me that day that he guesst his serynade hed spoiled all the chancet he ever had, but he wanted it over.

“So he was kind o’ sheepish an’ hang-dog ’hen he’d sayd good evenin’ to the widdy an’ set down melancholy like, on the wood-box. They was quiet a piecet.

“Then he sayd, ‘I hear ye hed some music up here last night.’

“He was jest fishin’.

“‘Did I!’ sais she, flarin’ up. ‘Well, I guesst I did. An’ the chickens was so stirred up they kep’ on all night an’ not a wink o’ sleep did we[105] git in this house. I never heerd sech bass-horn blowin’.’

“Borax jest hung his head an’ shuffled his feet.

“The widdy spoke up agin. ‘Does you ever see Bill Hooker?’

“‘Oncet in a long while,’ Borax answers.

“‘Well, you tell him,’ she sais, ‘that next time he comes up here to serynade me to send notice so I can git over the other side the mo’ntain.’

“Borax Bumbletree gasped an’ almost fell offen the wood-box.

“‘How’d you know it was Bill Hooker?’ he asts quick.

“‘Well, didn’t I see that new fandangled hat o’ hisn—that cady I’ve heerd so much about. Why, I’d ’a’ knowd him a mile.’

“Now Borax wasn’t ez slow on everything ez he was on music. He was right smart, he was. He seen the way the wind blowed.

“Gittin’ offen the wood-box he went over to the settee alongside o’ her.

“‘Pet,’ he sais, ‘I allus told you Bill Hooker couldn’t blow the bass-horn.’

“‘I otter ’a’ knowd you could blow a heap sight better,’ she sais quiet like, but meanin’ business.

“‘That I can,’ sais he. ‘An’ after we’re merried—not tell after, mind ye—I’ll blow sech music fer ye ez ye never dreamed of.’”

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“My sights, but he was innercent!” the Loafer cried.

“What do you know ’bout it?” snapped the Tinsmith.

“Why, him thinkin’ she’d give him a chancet to blow.”