The story of Don Miff

by Virginius Dabney

But to return to the scene in the Hall. And I beg that the reader will place himself entirely in my hands, while I endeavor to make him realize every feature of that scene,—for it really occurred just as he will find it recorded.

Figure to yourselves, then, my countless readers and admirers, first the Hall itself, with its lofty ceiling and its spacious, well-waxed floor of heart-pine so nicely joined that it was a sound-board in itself. At one end of the room stood a piano; at the other was a vast open fireplace, in which, supported by tall and glistening andirons, there glowed a noble fire of hickory logs five feet long. The furniture in the room was peculiar, consisting of a square table of exceeding lightness, and chairs that you might toss in the air with your little finger,—all with a view to the least possible weight upon the floor,—though I must say that they were often the means of bringing heavy weights in contact with it. Add to these a lounge of slenderest proportions, upon which my grandfather loved to recline, pipe in mouth, whenever any music was going forward; and you have all the furniture that the room possessed. Of other objects there were absolutely none upon the floor, except four cases containing the instruments needful to a string quartet; and these stood each in its own corner, as though on ill terms. The old gentleman had banished from the Hall even his collection of music, great piles of which were stowed away in the adjoining room; for he insisted that its weight would mar the resonance of the Hall. It remains but to add that upon the walls no painting or engraving was allowed. Their smooth finish showed no crack,—so that the Herr used to say that the hall, if strung, would have been a very goot feedle for Bolyphemoos, or some oder of dem chiant singers to blay on.

So much for the Hall, around which, on the Christmas Eve in question, were grouped nearly all my grandfather’s slaves old enough to be out on so cold a night, reinforced by many of Charley’s.

And I am not so sure that the outsiders were not having a merrier time than the insiders. For every now and then, throughout the evening, my grandfather might have been seen passing glasses of toddy or eggnog to one or another of the favorite old servants, as he observed them in the throng; and Charley and I saw that the rest had no cause to feel slighted. All had their share,—if not of toddy, at least of that without which all toddy is a delusion and a shadow. Then the sound of Jones’s fiddle could not be kept within-doors, and such of them as despaired of forcing their way through the masses around the windows and doors had formed rings, where, by the light of the wintry moon, the champion dancers of the two farms exhibited to admiring throngs what they knew about the double-shuffle and the break-down; and the solid earth resounded beneath the rhythm of their brogans. To me, I remember, they seemed happy, at the time; which goes to show how little I knew about happiness,—and I believe that they too were under the same delusion; but their early educations had been neglected.

Happy or wretched, however, let them form a frame, as it were, for the picture I would conjure up for my reader. The first note drawn forth by the Don had arrested their attention, and there was a rush for every spot from which a view could be had of the performer. See them, therefore, a few of the older ones just inside the door, the less fortunate craning their necks behind, and upon their faces that rapt attention which is an inspiration to an artist. See those others who, huddled upon boxes and barrels piled beneath the windows, are flattening their noses, one might almost say, against the lower panes. At the library door stood one or two tidy house-maids. Uncle Dick, alone, stood near the roaring fire, he assuming that his services were required.

“Hi! what dat?” exclaimed a youngster, when the strange sound first broke upon his ear; for he could not see the Don from where he stood.

“Heish, boy!” broke in a senior, in stern rebuke; “Don’t you see ’tis de new gent’mun a-playin’ on the fiddle?” And silence reigned again,—a silence broken, from time to time, by a low, rippling chuckle of intense delight, and illumined, one might say, by the whites of an hundred pairs of wondering eyes.

And now let us glance at the dozen gentlemen who sat within, beginning with my dear old grandfather.

At the first long-drawn, sonorous note he had sprung to his feet; and there he stood, with both hands raised and extended as though he commanded silence. And his countenance! never had I seen it look so beautiful! A happy smile lit up his noble face, and he seemed to say as he looked from Charley to me, and from me to Charley, “At last!” And Charley stood leaning against a corner of the mantel-piece, with his arms folded, replying to his friend with sympathetic glances. It was plain to see that he was happy in his old friend’s happiness, but there was a droll twinkle in his eyes that even he could not suppress, though he bit his lip. What it meant I could not, of course, divine.

It was a treat to behold the Herr on this occasion. With his forearm resting on the table, his fingers toying with the stem of his goblet, he leaned back in his chair and smiled, through his gold-rimmed spectacles, with a look of profound Germanic content and good nature. Not once did he remove his benignant eyes from the Don, not even when he raised his half-full glass to his lips and drained it to the last drop. Even then he watched, out of the corner of his eye, the fantastic caperings of the bow and the labyrinthine wanderings of the performer’s fingers; and slowly replacing his glass upon the table, stroked his long and straggling beard so softly that he seemed to fear that the sparse hairs would mar the music by their rattling.