Clay sat down in amazement. “An audience! and I thought it was a mob!” he gasped.
“You green, green chekako,” grinned the Kid. “Don’t you realize that most of these men have been up here for years without hearing any music but the tin pan din of the saloons and dance halls. Sing to them, boys, not cheap rag time, but some of the old, old songs they sang in the States years and years ago.
Clay grasped the cue and one after the other, followed by his companions, sang all the old familiar songs he could remember, the crowd on the dock occasionally joining in on some old time favorite. When they had finished, he sought in his mind for something that would appeal to them all. As he looked down for a moment upon the rough faces, marked with scurvy, frost bite and famine, there came to him a realization of what it was that drove these men to endure the cruelties of the Northland. It was not gold, alone, but shining above the brilliant metal, the face of some woman; wife, mother or sweetheart. He closed his eyes for a second and the vision was strong upon him of a slender girl in a white dress with a blue sash, seated at a piano, her soft white fingers wandering over the keys and her gentle voice singing—what was she singing forty years ago, what was she singing today? What did that girl in Chicago in the white dress and blue sash always sing to him when he called? He had it, but that first verse he never could remember, so he softly sang the second.
“Her brow is like the snow drift.
And her throat is like the swan’s.
Her face it is the fairest that
E’er th’ sun shon’ on.”
When the final—
“An’ for Bonnie Annie Laurie
I’d lay me down an’ dee”
died away the crowd stood quiet and silent for a minute.
“Now’s the best time to pass the hat, Clay, you understand,” whispered the commercial Ike. “That song was too sad-like—it sends them all home. You should have sung them something pretty, like the Hebrew Lovers’ Dream.”
“They’re dreaming enough about gold already,” retorted Clay, tartly, as he noted a man moving in and out amongst the crowd. He divined his intention. “Friend,” he called. “We don’t want a collection. If we have given a little diversion for a couple of hours, we are pleased and want no money,” but the crowd was not listening. They were now talking amongst themselves. “Can’t hear that song without thinking of my girl in Florida that’s waiting for me to make good. One of those slim little gals what wears white dresses with a blue sash and a bunch of orange blossoms stuck in it.” “Just like my wife,” assented a rough bearded miner, “only she lives in Connecticut, an’ we don’t have orange blossoms, but she’s always got something catchy pinned on her dress.”
“Case, for goodness sake, start some parting song,” whispered Clay. I can’t think of a thing, and that man keeps on taking up a collection.”