Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1897-04-05
A FIDDLER WANTED.
HE WAS FAMED AND AT DANCE MUSIC
 DID VERY WELL.


 gon short Line -Millionaires and nnmi- grants Attend Dance and Experience a Musical Surprise.
 On St. Patrick's day, 1894, five through trains, bound both to the east ward and westward of the Oregon Short Line of the Union Pacific, were tied up at Glenns Ferry, Ida. They had been caught between two serious washouts. one at Pocatello and the other at Indian Greek, three days before, and had to wait at Glenns Ferry for track repairs along the line before they could proceed. Glenns Ferry is bleak little railroad and sheep herders' town of 800 or 400 inhabitants, situate on sagebrush bluff overlooking the unspeakably dark and dreary Snake river.
 The five stalled trains carried GOO passengers of as miscellaneous eharac. ter as could be gotten together at a carefully selected congress of types. There were emigrants and millionaires; soldiers on the move; dainty women in palace cars and women bound for Creede and Cripple Creek i'll day coaches; min CTS who killed time during the wait in shooting magpies circling over the Snake river; Shoshone Indians travel ing to the limits of their reservation; well behaved and quiet people, noisy and tumultuous people. But all were stuck alike, and they made the best of it.
 Lines of social demarcation were for the time erased. All hands mingled easily on the little station platform and in the little station waiting room. The supply of food on the dining cars gave out the first day of the hitch, and every. body was fed, and we'll fed, too, in the station eating room. They sat down at the tables ill relays and patiently awaited their t7rns.
 Tho railrcAi employees and their wives were 10 give dance at the little town hall OH St. Patrick s night. The switehman who had been customarily employed to fiddle for them had been switched to another division. In a uuan dasy, tho dance committee toured the trains and station to ascertain if any of the stalled passengers happened to be carrying a violin and was capable of producing music on it. In one of the sleeping cars they came across an artistic looking man, with very long hair, seraphie, oleaginous eeuntenance and exceedingly baggy clothes They were looking for fiddler. they said. Did he 1 know of aEy OH the train? We'll, he didn't know Gin outrageously bad Eng lish); he played little himself once in | pa Pat, with him. The long haired man accent. ed the fiddle" rather curiously. But the railroad men were overjoyed. Would he play for them to dance with their wives and sweethearts? Certainlyl Did he know dance music? We'll, some.
 All of the stalled passengers were in- Ylted to the dance, and they all went. 4 good many of them could not get i'll. The baggily clothed fiddler turned up ill good time. The pianist was waiting for him. So was tho railroad dancr committee, one of the mem bers of which 1 slipped $a in one dollar bills into the fiddler's hand as payment i'll advance for tha evenings work. It was smiling. | ly accepted The dance began. The tiremang wife, who played the piano, produced an old bothrmbed violin and piano tune book eLd turned to the Ian. eers. Sbo told the fiddler, at the end of the first dance, that he cid pretty well, only he went too fast. Then there was waltz The fiddler was informed by his aceempanist that he was getting along finely, and every body ;lt the Ioom began 10 prick up his ezra at the sweet ness CR the violin music, although the dances were common enough and tawary enougi'.
 Another waltz-the Beautiful Rlue Danuhe. All of the dancers on tho floor stopped dead at the first bar, and the travellers with cultivated musical ears rloyed close 10 the piano. The pi. anist ceased. She wished to listen. The violin music was miraculous. The play CT swnyed from side to side as he phras ed. He appeared to be ohliylous of his surroundings He improylsed variations of inspiring tenderness. He cut Strauss. cd Strauss His violin sang. throbbed with passion. When the lart iote died away the people in the hall s-Npearo'' to be in dgeam-all lut one.
 "M. Ysaye. said Charley Fair. tn. son of the late United States Senator Fair, stepping from the throng, fswon , you play that lively, rattling thing you gave us at the Bohemian club in San Francisco the other night? It's beer running in my head ever since. '
 II. Ysaye played Berliozs tPizzi cat3" aa he perhaps never played it F. fore Washington Star.
 Tao Du Etaurier Woman.
 In all article which the late Mir Dn