"Fiddle!" cried Howard, glad of a chance to laugh. "Well, now! Bring out that fiddle. Is it William's?"
"Yes, pap's old fiddle."
"O Gosh! he don't want to hear me play," protested William. "He's heard s' many fiddlers."
"Fiddlers! I've heard a thousand violinists, but not fiddlers. Come, give us 'Honest John.'"
William took the fiddle in his work-calloused and crooked hands and began tuning it. The group at the kitchen door turned to listen, their faces lighting up a little. Rose tried to get a "set" on the floor.
"Oh, good land!" said some. "We're all tuckered out. What makes you so anxious?"
"She wants a chance to dance with the New Yorker."
"That's it, exactly," Rose admitted.
"Wal, if you'd churned and mopped and cooked for hayin' hands as I have to-day, you wouldn't be so full o' nonsense."
"Oh, bother! Life's short. Come quick, get Bettie out. Come, Wess, never mind your hobby-horse."