“I’m—I mean we uns is a-goin’ to come to see you. My father is goin’ to take me there some day. Kin you play on the Victrola?”
“No—we uns ain’t never seed one. What is it?”
“Why, it makes music.”
“Oh, we uns kin play the jew’s-harp.”
“Gee! I wish I could—I mean we uns wishes we uns could. If you show me how to play the jew’s-harp, I’ll show you how to play the Victrola. Come on, I’ll show you first while th’ain’t nobody in the pavilion. You see, my sisters is some bossy an’ they’s always sayin’ I scratch the records an’ won’t never let me play it by myself, but they is about the bossiest ever. I ain’t a-goin’ to hurt the old records.”
Tom Tit looked at the Victrola with wondering eyes while Bobby wound it up. He had seen a small organ once and the postmistress at Bear Hollow had a piano, but this musical instrument was strange indeed.
“I’m a-gonter leave the record on that Helen’s been a-playin’. I don’t know what it is. I can’t read good yet but I reckon it’s something pretty.”
It was Zimbalist playing the “Humoresque.” Fancy the effect of such a wonderful combination of sounds breaking for the first time on the sensitive ears of this mountain youth. He had heard music in the wind and music in the water; the birds had sung to him and the beasts had talked to him; but what was this? He stood like one enchanted, his hands clasped and his lips parted. At one point in the music when the great artist was evidently putting his whole soul in it, Tom Tit began to sob. Tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Why, what’s the matter? Don’t you like it? I’ll put a ragtime piece on,” cried Bobby, abruptly stopping the machine with a scraping sound that certainly proved he was a great scratcher of records.