The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-04-16

understand it. / hung my head and
pulled out my handkerchief and blowed
my nose loud to keep from cryin'. My
eyes is weak anyway. l didn't want any
body to be gain at me snivelin', and
it's nobody's business what do with my
nose. It's mine. But some several glared
at me, mad as Tucker.
"Then all of sudden, old Reuben
changed his tune. He ripped and he
rar'd, he tipped and tar'd, he pranced
and he charged, like the grand entry at
circus. Feared to me that all the gas in
the house was turned on at once-things
got so bright. / hilt up my head, ready
to look any man in the face, and not
afraid of nothin'. 1t was circus, and
brass band, and ball, all goin' at the
same time. He lit into them keys like
thousand of brick; he give 'em no rest,
day nor night; he set every Twin jint in
me goin' and not bein' able to stand it
no longer, l jumpt spang into my seat, and
just hollered,
L" Go Il, my RubeP
EVERY blamed man, woman and child
in the house riz on me and shouted, Put
him out put him out p
d" Put your great-grandmother's grizzly
gray.greenish cat into the middle of next
month 7 says. Tech me if you dar
l paid my money, and you jest come
a.nigh me
"With that some several p'licemen run
up, and had to simmer down. But l
would fit any fool that laid hands on
me, for was bound to hear Ruby out or die.
"He had changed his tune agin. He
hop'd-light ladies and tip.toed fine from
eend to eend of the keyboard. He played
soft and low, and solemn. l heard the
church bells over the hills. One by one
saw the stars rise. The great organ of
eternity began to play from the worlds
end to the worlds end, and all the angels
went to prayer. Then the music changed
the water, full of feeling that couldn't be
thought, much less told about, begun ito
drop-drip, drop, drip, drop-clear and
sweet, like tears of joy fallin' into lake
of glory. It was sweeter than that. 1t
was as sweet as sweetheart sweetenin'
sweetness with white sugar mkt with
powdered silver and seed.diamonds. 1t
was too sweet. tell you the audience
cheered. Reuben he kinder bowed like
he wanted to say, much obleeged, but
I'd rather you wouldn't interrupt me-
L" He stopt for minute or two to fetch
breath. Then he got mad. He run his
fingers through his har, he showed up his
sleeves, he opened his coat-tails little
further, he drug his stool, he leaned over,
aud, sir, he just went for that old pianner.
He slapt her face, he boxed her jaws, he
pulled her nose, he pinched her ears, he
scratched her cheeks till she fairly yelled.
He knockt her down and stomp on her
shameful. She beloved like a bull, she
bleated like calf, she howled like
hound, she squealed like pig, she
shrieked like rat, and then he wouldn't
let her up. He run quarter-stretch
down the low.grounds of the bass, till she
got clean into the bowels of the earth,
and you heard thunder galloping after
thunder through the hollows and caves of
perdition; and then he fox-chased his
right hand after his left, till he got
away out of the TRIBE into the clouds,
whar the notes was finer than the
pints of cambria needles, and you
couldn't hear nothin' but the shadders
of 'em. And then he wouldn't let the old
pianner 60. He for'ard-two'd, he crost
over first gentleman, he crost over first
lady, he balanced to pards, he chasshade
right and left, back to your places, he all
hands'd aroun', ladies to the right, prone
made all, in and out, here and thar, back
and forth, up and down, perpetual mo-
ton, double and twisted and tied and
turned and tackled and tangled into forty
'leven thousand double bow-knots. By
jings it was mixtery. And then he
wouldn't let the old pianner go. He
fetched up his right wing, he fetched up
his left wing, he fetched up his center, he
fetched up his reserves. He fred by file,
he fired by platoons, by company, by reg
iments, and by brigades. He opened his
cannon, seige guns down thar, Napoleons
here, twelve-pounders yonder, big guns,
little guns, middle-sized guns, round
shots, shells, sharpness, grape, canisters,
mortars, mines and magazines, and every
livin' battery and bomb a-goin' at the
same time. The house trimbled, the
lights danced, the walls shuk, and the
floor come up, the ceilin' come down, the
sky split, the ground rockt; heaven and
earth, creation, sweetpotatoes, Moses,
nine-pences, glory, tenpenny nails, my
Mary Ann, hallelujah, sweet Caesar in a
'simmon tree, Jeroosal'm, lump Tomp-
son in tumbler-cart, roodle- oodle-oodle-
OOulo-OOule-Tu Observation-Disclosures
dle-uddle -raddle. addle-sddle.addle.ad
- riddle-iddle-id -iddle-iddle reetle-
eetle-eetle- eetle-eetle- notwithstanding
per-lang r-r-r-r-r-r-lang bang
"With that bang he lifted hisself bod
lily into the air, and he come down with
his knees, his ten fingers, his ten toes, his
elbows, and his nose, striking every single
solitary note on that pianner at the same
time. The thing busted, and went off
into seventeen hundred and fifty-seven
thousand five hundred and forty-two
Observation-Disclosures and l don't know
no mo-.
"When come to l were under ground
about twenty foot, in place they call
Oyster Bay, treatin man that l never
laid eyes on before, and never expect to
again. Day was breaking by the time l
got to the st. Nicholas hotel, and pledge
you my word l didn't know my name.
The man asked me the number of my
room, and | told him, Hot music on the
half shell for t,ooP pintedlv did"