that; it being part of his trade to learn how to use
his eyes.

The sweet, loyal passion of the music--it would take worse playing than
Tommy's to drive the sweet, loyal passion out of Annie Laurie--grew
above the din of the train:--

"'T was there that Annie Laurie
Gave me her promise true."

She used to sing that, the man was thinking,--this other Annie of his
own. Why, she had been his own, and he had loved her once. How he had
loved her! Yes, she used to sing that when he went to see her on Sunday
nights, before they were married,--in her pink, plump, pretty days.
Annie used to be very pretty.

"Gave me her promise true,"

hummed the little fiddle.

"That's a fact," said poor Annie's husband, jerking the words out under
his hat, "and kept it too, she did."

Ah, how Annie had kept it! The whole dark picture of her married
years,--the days of work and pain, the nights of watching, the patient
voice, the quivering mouth, the tact and the planning and the trust for
to-morrow, the love that had borne all things, believed all things,
hoped all things, uncomplaining,--rose into outline to tell him how she
had kept it.

"Her face is as the fairest
That e'er the sun shone on,"

suggested the little fiddle.

That it should be darkened forever, the sweet face! and that he should
do it,--he, sitting here, with his ticket bought, bound for Colorado.

"And ne'er forget will I,"

murmured the little fiddle.

He would have knocked the man down who had told him twenty years ago
that he ever should forget; that he should be here to-night, with his
ticket bought, bound for Colorado.

But it was better for her to be free from him. He and his cursed
ill-luck were a drag on her and the children, and would always be. What
was that she had said once?

"Never mind, Jack, I can bear anything as long as I have you."

And here he was, with his ticket bought, bound for Colorado.

He wondered if it were ever too late in the day for a fellow to make a
man of himself. He wondered--

"And she's a' the world to me,
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me down and dee,"

sang the little fiddle, triumphantly.

Harmon shook himself, and stood up. The train was slackening; the
lights of a way-station bright ahead. It was about time for supper and
his mother, so Tommy put down his fiddle and handed around his faded
cap.

The merchant threw him a penny, and returned to his tax list. The old
lady was fas