Then
suddenly he leaned his cheek to the instrument and drew the bow across
the strings with a savage softness. The old cottonfield fiddle cried out
with a thrilling, exquisite pain, but muffled, as a hand at the lips
turns agony into a tender moan. Some one--some spirit--in the fiddle
was calling for its own.
Five minutes later-a five minutes in which people gathered at the
door of the shop, and heads were thrust inside in ravished wonder--the
palpitating Romany lowered the fiddle from his chin, and stood for a
minute looking into space, as though he saw a vision.
He was roused by old Berry's voice. "Das a fiddle I wouldn't sell for a
t'ousand dollars. If I could play like dat I wouldn't sell it for ten
t'ousand. You kin play a fiddle to make it worth a lot--you."
The Romany handed back the instrument. "It's got something inside it
that makes it better than it is. It's not a good fiddle, but it has
something--ah, man alive, it has something!" It was as though he was
talking to himself.
Berry made a quick, eager gesture. "It's got the cotton-fields and the
slave days in it. It's got the whip and the stocks in it; it's got the
cry of the old man that'd never see his children ag'in.
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