“Exactly. He couldn’t sing without his fiddle any more than I could paint without my hands. What’s a soul without a song? And he—he has some big ones to sing during these next few years.”
“Steady. Steady. Don’t let that imagination of yours run away with you.”
Barnes studied the big-framed, big-faced man a second and continued more soberly.
“What you call imagination are the grim facts of life for him and for me, doctor. His fiddle isn’t a detail of his life—it’s life itself for him. Cripple his arm and you cripple his soul. You’ve got to fight as hard for those fingers as you would for his life.”
If Dr. Merriweather was at first only annoyed by what he took to be mere extravagance of speech, there was something now in the tense face of Barnes which made him pause and think.
“Carl didn’t say anything to me about that,” he observed.
“No,” answered Barnes, “because he didn’t wish it to get upstairs.”
“To Eleanor?”
“To Eleanor,” answered Barnes.
Dr. Merriweather held out his hand.