Watch Yourself Go By

by Al. G. Field

When they reached home the melodeon was started up again, and its strains swelled out on the night air until the father closed the rehearsal abruptly by ordering all to bed.

The seed had been sown; even the chaff had taken root. The clown illusion still clung to Alfred but the minstrel idea seemed nearer realization. Did ever a party of amateurs decide to assault the public that they did not use a minstrel performance as their weapon?

Despite the protests of the parents, the old melodeon, notwithstanding its age and other infirmities, was worked overtime. Alfred sang and resang the songs they had learned or deceived themselves into believing they had learned at the minstrels.

Billy Woods had a good ear for tunes. As Lin put it, Billy caught more of the tunes than any of the others. Billy became a nightly visitor. Billy's flute and the melodeon did not harmonize as the melodeon had only three notes left in it. Lin just waited when a note was missing until the next measure and then "ketched up" as she expressed it.

Amity Getty was another addition to the little band. He was really a good performer on the guitar. Alfred's especial favorite in the minstrels was the fellow who handled the tambourine. The mother said there was not a pie pan in the house they could bake in, Alfred had them so battered and dented thumping them on his knees, head and elbows.

"I declare, I believe the boy is going crazy; I don't know what we will do with him," often said the mother.

Cousin Charley was of an inventive turn of mind. He had become greatly interested in the nightly singing and fashioned a tambourine out of an old cheese box by cutting it down. Dennis Isler put tin jingles in it and put on a sheepskin head.

The instrument in Alfred's hands became a terror to the household. He was banished to the commons where, surrounded by the children of the neighborhood, he did his practicing to the delight and danger of his audience as he persisted in finishing his antics by thumping one of the audience on the head with his instrument of torture, which generally sent the recipient of his thwack home, holding his head and crying. This usually brought a complaint from the victim's parents and Alfred's visits to the cellar accompanied by his father became so frequent that a boy with less ardor would surely have lost interest in his instrument.

Alfred repeatedly advised Lin that they never could be minstrels if they did not have bones. He selected Billy Storey to perform on these necessary adjuncts to the minstrels. When Lin brought home from John Allison's meat shop a rib roast, the mother, astonished at the size of it, said: "My goodness, Lin, that roast is big enough for any tavern in town."

The fact was Lin had not closely studied the bone player's instruments. She was of the opinion it required eight bones instead of four, hence the magnitude of the roast.