XXVIII.
The next time Ray came, he found Denton dreamily picking at the strings of a violin which lay in his lap; the twins were clinging to his knees, and moving themselves in time to the music. “You didn’t know Ansel was a musician?” his wife said. “He’s just got a new violin—or rather it’s a second-hand one; but it’s splendid, and he got it so cheap.”
“I profited by another man’s misfortune,” said Denton. “That’s the way we get things cheap.”
“Oh, well, never mind about that, now. Play the ‘Darky’s Dream,’ won’t you, Ansel? I wish we had our old ferry-boat darky here to whistle!”
After a moment in which he seemed not to have noticed her, he put the violin to his chin, and began the wild, tender strain of the piece. It seemed to make the little ones drunk with delight. They swayed themselves to and fro, holding by their father’s knees, and he looked down softly into their uplifted faces. When he stopped playing, their mother put out her hand toward one of them, but it clung the faster to its father.
“Let me take your violin a moment,” said Ray. He knew the banjo a little, and now he picked out on the violin an air which one of the girls in Midland had taught him.
The twins watched him with impatient rejection; and they were not easy till their father had the violin back. Denton took them up one on each knee, and let them claw at it between them; they looked into his face for the effect on him as they lifted themselves and beat the strings. After a while Peace rose and tried to take it from them, for their father seemed to have forgotten what they were doing; but they stormed at her, in their baby way, by the impulse that seemed common to them, and screamed out their shrill protest against her interference.
“Let them alone,” said their father, gently, and she desisted.
“You’ll spoil those children, Ansel,” said his wife, “letting them have their own way so. The first thing you know, they’ll grow up capitalists.”
He had been looking down at them with dreamy melancholy, but he began to laugh helplessly, and he kept on till she said: