“Here, let me get your violin. Play for me, while I smoke.”
She took it from him, and he began smoking, as she played for him the piece he had asked her to learn. He could see the confidence she had gained in herself. Patience was all that she lacked.
“There is yet another one I want you to learn for me.”
“What’s the use? I may never see you again. I don’t know that I’ll worry with it.”
The thought of his going away met with resentment in her. She did not like to picture life with his companionship withdrawn.
“Fiddledee humbug! I expect to see you again lots of times. Maybe I’ll spend Christmas day with the Curtises. I might come over awhile at that time if you would ask me. I am not going home just for a day. New York State is too far.”
“I couldn’t divide you, I want the whole day or nothing.” Esther leaned her elbow on the violin case.
“I remember the first time I was ever offered a piece of a whole thing. I was a very little girl. I had a china plate that I always used at my place at table, and one day a boy broke it in halves and mended it. It had tiny green dots shaped like a fence row around it, and I noticed one place where the dots didn’t fit, and then I saw where they had pasted it together. A little chip of it was gone. It nearly broke my heart. They all said it was as good as new, but they couldn’t make me see it in that way. What do you suppose I did?”
“There is no telling.”
“It had been the pride of my life, but I took that plate out, and broke it in pieces and strewed them down the road to cut his feet when he came by from school.”