“She’ll never drill under any other captain than love,” said Antoine with a smile up into Margaret’s grave face.
“And he’ll have to be a pretty lively fellow to keep up with her antics, too,” said Gilbert as he leaned his hoe against the fence and took up the fiddle to examine it.
Margaret’s face grew thoughtful as she heaped the earth about the frame. “Love, love,” said she to herself. “After all, it is like the sun, the vivifying influence of the world, and duty sounds cold beside it. I must find out what it is that is trying to burst its bonds in my little girl’s bosom. It may be I am too slow and dull for the gay spring-time that is budding there.”
“Antoine,” she exclaimed presently, “Gilbert shall fix up the old fiddle and you shall learn to wake us up. I believe we’ve been too sleepy for Elsie.”
“O Miss Margaret! she is so lovely and so are you,” he added naïvely.
“The old fiddle, Antoine,” said Margaret, responsively patting the boy’s hand, “the old fiddle has a history. Some eight or nine years ago my father took into his house a sick man, who came apparently from nowhere and was apparently journeying to the same place. He was very ill when he came to the house, and begged for a night’s lodging and supper. My father never turned any one who was hungry from his door, and so he came among us, and sat all the evening a silent figure in the chimney corner until bedtime. He had nothing with him but a bundle tied up in a red handkerchief and the fiddle. My father, with a delicacy which was characteristic of him, did not even ask the man his name, and so we never knew who he was, nor where his friends were, if he had any. About midnight we were all awakened by strains of the weirdest music; sometimes so sad and wailing that it seemed like a human being in agonies of pain, again as gay and glad as any chansonette, with here and there bird notes so sweet and clear one could almost hear the forest echoes, and then the maddest, wildest, most rollicking melodies breaking in upon it all. At last it stopped with a discordant crash of the bow across the strings, and father stepped to the door of the sick man’s chamber, to find him lying across the bed raving in delirium. We nursed him through a two-days’ illness, and then he died without having told us a word of himself. There was nothing to indicate who or what he was in his little bundle, and so that and the violin were put away and nearly forgotten until we came across them in moving. I am glad Antoine is going to have the violin. My grave father had no use for it.”
During the recital of Margaret’s story, Lizzette Minaud had stood a rapt listener, her brown face working with some unwonted emotion. When Margaret had finished she said huskily, “Ze violin for Antoine, Miss Margaret? C’est très-bon. I tank you so mooch. Now Antoine will pour out his soul; he ees so like son père, mon pauvre Jacques—ah Dieu! où est-il?”
“Is he not dead?” asked Margaret in surprise.
“Non. When Antoine two year old, he go look for work. He promise me to come back soon; mais le temps—c’est long, long. I nevair hear von word. I know notings if he be living or dead. But ze violin eet bring back ze memories. Mon Jacques he love eet so, and play très-bien.”
“Ma mère! ma mère!” cried Antoine, throwing up his arms at sight of Lizzette’s agitated face.