“‘I’d like to hear you,’ sais Pet. ‘Won’t you come an’ blow fer me sometim’?’
“‘I will,’ he answers, wery determined.
“He went home that night bound to git time an’ pitch together. He started to practise ’round the house but his fam’ly objected. The missus ’lowed she could never play the ’cordine with sech a bellerin’ goin’ on. Amandy Lucy went so fur ez to say it ’ud ruin her voice. But that didn’t stop Borax. He sayd he’d practise ’way from the house. Every night after the feedin’ was done he use to take his horn, his music marks an’ a lantern, an’ go out on the hill ahint the barn. There, settin’ on a lawg, with the lantern hangin’ on a saplin’, he’d blow away. Many a night that summer ez I set over at our placet on the next ridge, I’d hear Borax a boom-boom-boomin’ to git the time. The big tones ’ud go echoin’ way over in the mo’ntain. Oncet in a while he’d hit it good, an’ I tell you uns it sounded pretty to hear them notes a-rollin’ deep acrosst the gut, a-sighin’ th’oo the trees an’ a-dyin’ way off in the woods.
“Then he tuk up pitch. He blowed pitch fer a week an’ then tried pitch an’ time together. I thot he was doin’ pretty well. Still them ban’ boys wasn’t satisfied. They sayd he didn’t go up an’ down right, an’ that they couldn’t hev him a-blowin’ ’way at pitch an’ time an’ never makin’ no new notes. He ’lowed to me that they was a heap to learn ’bout blowin’ a bass-horn, but he was goin’ to git it ef it ’ud only be of uset in the next worl’.
“At nights I could see his light a-twinklin’ in the woods acrosst the gut an’ hear him tryin’ to blow time an’ pitch an’ ups an’ downs all at oncet. He’d git his wind fixed to blow A, an’ out ’ud come a C; or he’d try fer a D an’ land an E. He ’lowed to me oncet that sometim’ he thot mebbe it was willed that he was never to git a tune. But he kep’ at it.
“Now Bill Hooker hed ben to Horrisburg that summer an’ got him a brown cady hat. That was a new kind o’ headgear ’round Kishikoquillas an’ it cot on wonderful well. All the boys ’lowed they’d git ’em, but tell they had a chancet o’ buyin’ one they got to depend on Bill fer the loan o’ hisn ’hen they was goin’ out shinin’. So Hooker wasn’t s’prised one night ’hen Borax Bumbletree drove up to his placet an’ ’lowed mebbe Hooker mightn’t like to loan him his cady, ez he was goin’ callin’. Bill allus was obligin’ an’ thot no harm ’hen he watched Borax a-drivin’ away with his cady settin’ way up on top o’ his head. Bumbletree hitched his buckboard to a saplin’ on the edge o’ Pet Parsley’s clearin’. Then he got his horn out from in under the seat, fixed himself on a stump ’bout fifty feet from the house, put up his music marks so the moonlight shone on ’em, an’ begin to play. He started the serynade with ‘Soft th’oo the Eventide,’ that bein’ sentymental an’ his most famil’ar piece. He put his whole heart into the work an’ was soon blowin’ time an’ pitch an’ ups an’ downs all at oncet. The lamp that hed ben settin’ in the windy went out—that was all to show he’d ben heard. He blowed ‘Pull fer the Shore, Sailor.’ No sign o’ life in the house. He blowed ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’ Still no sign. He then begin all over agin with ‘Soft th’oo the Eventide.’ Be this time the whole chicken-house hed j’ined in, an’ the cows was takin’ a hand too. He was desp’rit, dissypinted fearful an’ all used up. So he went home.
“You take a reg’lar thief. He knows they’s only one eend to thievin’—jail. An’ he’ll keep on stealin’ tell he gits there. Take a reg’lar murderer. He knows they’s only one eend to murder—the galluses; yit he’ll continyer murderin’ tell he gits there. So it is with a reg’lar man. He knows they’s only one result o’ bein’ in lawv—to be merried or git the mitten. An’ yit he’ll keep right on tell he gits one or the other. So it was with Borax Bumbletree. He hed no reason to think he’d git anything but the mitten, yit he went right up to Pet Parsley’s next night to take his punishment. He tol’ me that day that he guesst his serynade hed spoiled all the chancet he ever had, but he wanted it over.
“So he was kind o’ sheepish an’ hang-dog ’hen he’d sayd good evenin’ to the widdy an’ set down melancholy like, on the wood-box. They was quiet a piecet.
“Then he sayd, ‘I hear ye hed some music up here last night.’
“He was jest fishin’.