"By George!" exclaimed the blacksmith. "You was born to it, ma'am; that's plain enough. Well, it was just so with me. I took to music as a Newfoundland pup takes to the water. When my brother Sam and I were boys, we were let out to work for a blacksmith. We wanted a fiddle dreadfully; but we were too poor to buy one; and we couldn't have got much time to play on't if we had had one, for our boss watched us as a weasel watches mice. But we were bent on getting music somehow. The boss always had plenty of iron links of all sizes, hanging in a row, ready to be made into chains when wanted. One day, I happened to hit one of the links with a piece of iron I had in my hand. 'By George! Sam,' said I, 'that was Do.' 'Strike again,' says he. 'Blow! Sam, blow!' said I. I was afraid the boss would come in and find the iron cooling in the fire. So he kept blowing away, and I struck the link again. 'That's Do, just as plain as my name's Sam,' said he. A few days after, I said, 'By George! Sam, I've found Sol.' 'So you have,' said he. 'Now let me try. Blow, Joe, blow!' Sam, he found Re and La. And in the course of two months we got so we could play Old Hundred. I don't pretend to say we could do it as glib as you run over the ivory, ma'am; but it was Old Hundred, and no mistake. And we played Yankee Doodle, first rate. We called our instrument the Harmolinks; and we enjoyed it all the more because it was our own invention. I tell you what, ma'am, there's music hid away in everything, only we don't know how to bring it out."
"I think so," rejoined Mrs. Blumenthal. "Music is a sleeping beauty, that needs the touch of a prince to waken her. Perhaps you will play something for us, Mr. Bright?" She rose and vacated the music-stool as she spoke.
"I should be ashamed to try my clumsy fingers in your presence, ladies," he replied. "But I'll sing the Star-spangled Banner, if you will have the goodness to accompany me."
She reseated herself, and he lifted up his voice and sang. When he had done, he drew a long breath, wiped the perspiration from his face with a bandana handkerchief, and laughed as he said: "I made the screen of your gas-light shake, ma'am. The fact is, when I sing that, I have to put all my heart into it."
"And all your voice, too," rejoined Mrs. Blumenthal.
"O, no," answered he, "I could have put on a good deal more steam, if I hadn't been afraid of drowning the piano. I'm greatly obliged to you, ladies; and I hope I shall have the pleasure of hearing you again in my own house. I should like to hear some more now, but I've stayed too long. My wife agreed to meet me at a store, and I don't know what she'll say to me."
"Tell her we detained you by playing to you," said Mrs. Blumenthal.
"O, that would be too much like Adam," rejoined he. "I always feel ashamed to look a woman in the face, after reading that story. I always thought Adam was a mean cuss to throw off all the blame on Eve." With a short bow, and a hasty "Good morning, ladies," he went out.
His parting remark amused Flora so much, that she burst into one of her musical peals of laughter; while her more cautious friend raised her handkerchief to her mouth, lest their visitor should hear some sound of mirth, and mistake its import.
"What a great, beaming face!" exclaimed Flora. "It looks like a sunflower. I have a fancy for calling him Monsieur Girasol. What a pity Mr. Green hadn't longed for a musical instrument, and been too poor to buy one. It would have done him so much good to have astonished himself by waking up a tune in the Harmolinks."