“Play for me,” said she. “Play ‘Barbara Allen.’ Do something for me this morning!”
So David Joslin, student of Calvin, Cumberland mountaineer, self-elected minister—and as he now fully felt, lost soul—thus cast away in a buffet flat of upper Manhattan, played the old ballad of “Barbara Allen” to one of the gayest young persons at that time in the great city. He played it in minors, bowing very badly, missing the key sometimes a half-note or so, slurring here, over-accentuating there, phrasing after his own quaint mountain fashion, but none the less producing something which might have been called a melody. Polly’s foot began to beat upon the floor, her fingers upon the arm of the chair.
“Man!” said she, after he had finished, “if I could take you into vaudeville, we’d break this country! That’s class!”
“It’s not much,” said he, misunderstanding. “I nuvver had no lessons. I’ve nuvver been to school in all my life, an’ I nuvver seen a music book in all my life—I reckon that’s music ye got over thar?” He nodded towards the sheets which he saw standing in their rack.
“You’re an odd chap,” said she, with a strange softness in her tone. “I’ve never seen a man like you—never in all my life. You’re a strange chap. What brought you here?”
“I come out, Ma’am, to build a college fer my people. I come out to git my education. I come up here with Mr. Haddon, jest to talk to a few friends of his’n about timber an’ oil, ye know.”
“Jimmy Haddon, eh?” Polly’s lips set rather tight together. “Well, he’s a good business man. You have to hand him that. But say—keep an eye on him, that’s all. Listen here, son—you’re what we call ‘easy’ in the city. You don’t belong here—you’re too straight—you’re too good for it.”
“What do ye mean?” said he. “Too good! I’m the wustest of sinners. But if I accepted sin—say, if I made a lot of money—several hundred dollars a month—an’ had it clear—would ye tell me to throw that over an’ go back home?”
The dark eyes of Polly Pendleton looked straight into his face now.
“There’s a lot of things a girl can understand without explaining very much,” said she, simply. She saw the rising somber flame in this man’s eyes that met her own so straight. And then, suddenly, he broke out, all restraints gone.