“Goodness!” cried Ruth, trying to laugh away Nettie’s resentment. “It is fortunate you are not a man, Nettie. You would, I suppose, challenge somebody to a duel over this.”
“There have been duels for less in this county, I can assure you,” said Nettie, without smiling.
“How bloodthirsty!” laughed Ruth. “But let’s think about something pleasanter. Nettie is becoming savage.”
“I know what will cure her,” cried Helen and bounced out of the room. She came back in a few minutes with a battered violin that she had borrowed from one of the negroes who had been a member of the orchestra the night before. It was a mellow instrument and Helen quickly had it in tune.
“Music has been known to soothe the savage breast,” declared Helen, tucking the violin, swathed in a silk handkerchief, under her dimpled chin.
“I’ll forgive anybody—even my worst enemy—if Ruth will sing, too,” begged Nettie.
So after a few introductory strains Helen began an old ballad that she and Ruth had often practised together. Ruth, sitting with her hands folded in her lap and looking thoughtfully out on the drenched landscape, began to sing.
Nettie set the door ajar. The two girls came in from the other room. Norma, wide-eyed, crouched on the floor to listen. And before long a crowd of faces appeared at the open door.
Quite unconscious of the interest they were creating, the two members of the Briarwood Glee Club played and sang for several minutes. It was Helen who looked toward the door first and saw their audience.
“Oh, Ruth!” she exclaimed, and stopped playing. Ruth turned, the song dying on her lips. The crowd of guests began to applaud and in the distance could be heard Curly Smith clapping his hands together and shouting: