“Hit her up, Archie,” encouraged Thorpe.
“I ain't much in practice no how,” objected the man in a little voice, without moving.
“I'm sure you'll find us very appreciative,” said Elizabeth Carpenter.
“Give us a song, Archie, let her go,” urged Thorpe impatiently.
“All right,” replied the man very meekly.
Another silence fell. It got to be a little awful. The poor woodsman, pilloried before the regards of this polite circle, out of his element, suffering cruelly, nevertheless made no sign nor movement one way or the other. At last when the situation had almost reached the breaking point of hysteria, he began.
His voice ordinarily was rather a good tenor. Now he pitched it too high; and went on straining at the high notes to the very end. Instead of offering one of the typical woods chanteys, he conceived that before so grand an audience he should give something fancy. He therefore struck into a sentimental song of the cheap music-hall type. There were nine verses, and he drawled through them all, hanging whiningly on the nasal notes in the fashion of the untrained singer. Instead of being a performance typical of the strange woods genius, it was merely an atrocious bit of cheap sentimentalism, badly rendered.
The audience listened politely. When the song was finished it murmured faint thanks.
“Oh, give us 'Jack Haggerty,' Archie,” urged Thorpe.
But the woodsman rose, nodded his head awkwardly, and made his escape. He entered the men's camp, swearing, and for the remainder of the day made none but blasphemous remarks.