er you
ever laid eyes on; somethin' like a distracted billiard-table on three
legs. The lid was hoisted, and mighty well it was. If it hadn't been,
he'd 'a' tore the entire inside clean out and shattered 'em to the four
winds of heaven.

_Played well?_ You bet he did; but don't interrupt me. When he first sit
down he 'peared to keer mighty little 'bout playin' and wisht he hadn't
come. He tweedle-leedled a little on a treble, and twoodle-oodled some
on the base,--just foolin' and boxin' the thing's jaws for bein' in his
way. And I says to a man sittin' next to me, says I, "What sort of fool
playin' is that?" And he says, "Heish!" But presently his hands
commenced chasin' one another up and down the keys, like a passel of
rats scamperin' through a garret very swift. Parts of it was sweet,
though, and reminded me of a sugar squirrel turnin' the wheel of a candy
cage.

"Now," I says to my neighbor, "he's showin' off. He thinks he's a-doin'
of it, but he ain't got no idee, no plan of nothin'. If he'd play me a
tune of some kind or other, I'd--"

But my neighbor says, "Heish!" very impatient.

I was just about to git up and go home, bein' tired of that
foolishness, when I heard a little bird waking up away off in the woods
and call sleepy-like to his mate, and I looked up and see that Rubin was
beginning to take some interest in his business, and I sit down again.
It was the peep of day. The light came faint from the east, the breezes
blowed gentle and fresh, some more birds waked up in the orchard, then
some more in the trees near the house, and all begun singin' together.
People began to stir, and the gal opened the shutters. Just then the
first beam of the sun fell upon the blossoms a leetle more, and it techt
the roses on the bushes, and the next thing it was broad day; the sun
fairly blazed, the birds sung like they'd split their little throats;
all the leaves was movin', and flashin' diamonds of dew, and the whole
wide world was bright and happy as a king. Seemed to me like there was a
good breakfast in every house in the land, and not a sick child or woman
anywhere. It was a fine mornin'.

And I says to my neighbor, "That's music, that is."

But he glared at me like he'd like to cut my throat.

Presently the wind turned; it begun to thicken up, and a kind of gray
mist came over things; I got low-spirited directly. Then a silver rain
began to fall. I could see the drops touch the ground; some flashed up
like l