He kissed his babies and ate his supper laughing and joking like a boy of nineteen. The table cleared, he ordered a concert for their entertainment.
Bob, the leader of his minstrels, was a dandified mulatto who played the guitar, the second was a whistler and the third a master of the negro dance, the back step and the breakdown.
Bob tuned his guitar, picked his strings and gazed at the ceiling. He was apparently selecting the first piece. It, was always the same, his favorite, "Listen to the Mocking Bird." He played with a plaintive, swaying melody that charmed his hearers. The whistler amazed them with his marvelous imitation of birds and bird calls. The room throbbed with every note of the garden, field and wood.
The mother's face was wreathed in smiles. The boy shouted. The baby crooned. The first piece done, the audience burst into a round of applause.
Bob gave them "Alabama" next, accompanied by the whistler and his bird chorus.
Stuart laughed and called for the breakdown. Bob begins a jig on his guitar, the whistler claps and the sable dancer edges his way to the center of the floor in little spasmodic shuffles. He begins with his heel tap, then the toe, then in leaps and whirls. The guitar swelled to a steady roar. The whistler quickens his claps. And Stuart's boyish laughter rang above the din.
"Go it, boy! Go it!"
The dancer's eyes roll. His step quickens. He cuts the wildest figures in a frenzy of abandoned joy. With a leap through the door he is gone. The guitar stops with a sudden twang and Stuart's laughter roars.
And then he gave an hour to play with his children before a mother's lullaby should put them to sleep. He got down on his all fours and little Jeb mounted and rode round the room to the baby's scream of joy. He lay flat on the floor with the baby on his breast and let her pull his beard and mustache until her strength failed.
The children were still sound asleep when they sat down and ate breakfast before day.