“I’ll give you slips of paper with the words of the chorus printed on them by typewriter,” explained Dick; “and then play the air, so you can follow it. According to my mind the music is going to be the best part of this black farce.”
“Listen to him, will you?” scoffed Andy Hale. “Dick says that because the music is the only thing some one else got up, and Connie Swazy at that. Of course it’s bound to be good, because that girl is a regular genius along those lines. But all the same, there are others. Now get away, Dick.”
If any one had happened to be passing along the road a little later he must have been deeply puzzled to account for the hilarious shouts that occasionally broke out from the Capes’ barn on that particular Saturday afternoon. Boyish laughter it surely was, and the listener would have certainly come to the conclusion that Leslie and some of his friends were having a royal good time of it there, no matter what engaged their attention.
They laughed at Dick’s jokes until they were weak. Then after Dick had twanged his banjo in his clever fashion, and given them the first stanza of a coon song, he played the catchy music of the smashing chorus, after which all of them joined in with a roar, as they were accustomed to doing with their familiar school songs.
After the first song had been sung several times, by request, the boys could not refrain from giving vent to their enthusiasm.
“That’s as fine a thing as I ever heard!” declared Elmer, radiantly.
“Words and music are just immense!” said Andy. “There’s something worth while in the sentiment too, which counts. So many of these ragtime things are the silliest stuff going. And say, Connie did herself proud when she got up that air. I’ll have to keep watching all the while not to be humming it, and giving the snap away long before the time comes.”
The others, too, had words of praise for Dick’s modest little farce as far as they had heard him give it.
“Why,” said Andy Hale, seriously, “if it keeps on like that all the way through, old fellow, it’s going to make Nat’s effort look like thirty cents, I wager.”
“Oh!” said Leslie, who was feeling very happy to hear them shower all this praise on Dick, “that’s only a sample of what he’s got up his sleeve. The best is yet to come. Wait till you hear that ‘Oh! Susannah’ song and chorus; it’ll make you shake all over; and then the music is simply great!”