BALLAD OF OBADI FRYE

’Twas a battered old, double-B, twisted bass

horn,

With a yaw in the flare at its end;

A left-over veteran, relic forlorn

Of the halcyon days when a band had been

born

To the village of Buckleby Bend.

The band was dismembered by time and by

death

As the years went a-scurrying by,

And only one player was left with his breath

And that was old Obadi’ I.

P. Frye.

Old Obadi’ Isaac Pitt Frye.

With a glow in his eye

He would plaintively try

To puff out the tune that they marched to at

training;

But the tremolo drone

Of the brassy old tone

Quavered queerly enough with his scant breath

remaining.

Ah, the years had been many and bent was his

back,

And caved was his chest and departed his

knack;

So, though he was filled with musicianly pride

And huffed at the mouthpiece and earnestly

tried

To steady his palsied old lip and control

The old-fashioned harmonies stirring his soul—

There was nothing in Buckleby quite so for-

lorn

As the oomp-tooty-oomp of that old bass horn.

To the parties and sociables, quiltings and sings

They invited old Obadi’ Frye;

He’d give ’em doldrums of old-fashioned

things

With occasional bass obligato for strings

—Or at least he would zealously try.

The minister coaxed him to buy a cornet

And chirk up a bit in his tune,

But none could induce him to ever forget

His love for that old bassoon,

Whose tune

Was the solace of life’s afternoon.

So he’d splutter and moan

With his thin, gusty tone

But his empty old lungs balked his anxious en-

deavor.

He hadn’t the starch

For a jig or a march,

And with double-F volume he’d parted forever.

For he hadn’t the breath for a triple note run,

’Twas a whoof and a pouf! and alas, he was

done;

But the pride of his heart was that old double-

bass,

He was happy alone with its lips at his face.

So he sat in his old leather chair day by day

And whooped the one solo he’d power to play,

An anthem entitled, “All Hail Christmas

Morn,”

As rendered by gulps on an old bass horn.

“All hail—hoomp—hoomp—bright Christmas

morn,

Hail—hoomp, hoomp—hoomp—fair

hoomp—hoomp—dawn;

Turn—hoomp—hoomp, eyes

Hoomp—hoomp,

HOOMP—skies,

When—hoomp—hoomp,

hoomp—H O O M P—boom.

While a-tooting one morning his breath flick-

ered out

With a sort of a farewell purr;

Of course there are many to scoff and to scout,

But’twas sucked by that cavernous horn with-

out doubt,

At least, so the neighbors aver.

They laid him away in the churchyard to rest

And with grief that they sought not to hide,

They placed the old battered B-B on his breast

And that Christmas hymn score by his side—

His pride,

‘Twas the tune that he played when he died.

Now, who here denies

That far in the skies

He is probably calmly and placidly winging;

That his spirit new-born

With his score and his horn

Takes flight where the hosts are triumphantly

singing.

Yet it irks me to think that he’s far in that

Land

With only the score of one anthem in hand.

For the music Above must be novel and

strange—

Too intricate far for that double-B range,

But at last when the Christmastide rings in the

skies

There’ll be some queer quavers in fair Para-

dise,

For an humble old spirit will calmly allow

“I reckin I’ll give ’em that horn solo now.”

Up there we are certain there’s no one to carp

Because Obadiah won’t tackle a harp—

Seraphs and cherubs will hush their refrain

When a new note of praise intermingles its

strain,

And he’ll add to the jocund delight of that

morn

With his anthem, “All hail,” on that old bass

horn.