b d a c, on which are seated a. Tom Larcom, b. Nat Harlow, and between them four farmers, three girls; another girl standing c.; beside her on floor, kneeling, a farmer picks up the husks thrown by the huskers, and puts them in a basket. A small pile of corn, d., which the occupants of the benches are at work on, throwing the corn into bins, r.; the husks behind. Just back of b., Hanks seated on a barrel with violin playing, "In the sweet by and by." Stub leaning against wing, l., i e. listening; stool r., i e.; red lanterns hung r. and l., red light from footlights. Hanks plays the air through during the rising of curtain.
Stub. Golly! hear dat now, will you? D-d-dat what I call music in de har, fur it jes make my har stan' on end, yes, it does. And I feel—I feel jes as dough I was skewered onto dat ar fiddle-bow, an' bein' drawed frou a sea ob bilin' merlasses. Golly, so sweet!
Nat. There's a first-class puff for you, Hanks, from the mouth of a critic—with a black border.
Tom. You do beat all nater, Hanks, with the fiddle; your hand is as cute, and your ear as fine, as though the one had never held a plough, or the other listened to the jingling of a cowbell. Talk of your genuses. Give me the chap that's a Jack at any thing, from digging ninety tater-hills afore breakfast, to sparking a pretty girl at 'leven o'clock on a starlight night.
Stub. Wid de ole man comin' roun' de corner ob de house wid a double-barrel rebolver, "You scoot or I shoot." Don't forget de embellishments, Tom Larcom. (All laugh.)
Nat. Ha, ha! had you there, Tom.
Tom. What are you laughing at? If old Corum mistook me for a prowler one night, am I to blame?
Stub. Coorse not, coorse not, when you didn't stop to 'lucidate, but jumped de fence and scooted down de road hollering "Murder!" (Laugh.)