The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1910-01-26
Bricky
@, Barr

visited Washington, told at the Gar
rick Club a curious story about
violin pupil he once had.
at was at Wichita, Kan, where
was teaching in the early SOS, that
/ got hold of this pupil" he said.
He was a plasterer. Don't laugh
when / say on top of that that he
was one OF the most promising violin
pupils / ever had He was quiet,
good-natured, sawed-off, named
Frank Barr, but everybody called
him Bricky Barr. because he had the
reddest suit of cowlicky hair that
ever entered into competition with
a stormy sunset. He was about four
inches over feet high, but as
broad across the back as Hacken-
schmidt, with a pair of orang-out-
ang arms that reached almost to his
knees. He could pick up by the
rear axle a two-horse wagon loaded
with brick and raise 1t five feet clear
of the ground with one hand.
Il belonged to the drifters when l
reached Wichita and organized my
class there. One evening, soon after
I'd got my scraping flock assem-
bled, was passing a mechanics
boarding house on the outskirts of
Wichita. This crimson-haired runt
was sitting before one of the open
front windows, saving on a fiddle.
1t wasn't a violin. 1t was a fiddle,
and a vicious fiddle. The man max
ing the sounds on it was, I knew at
once, an ear player. Yet there was
occasionally certain sentiment true
and sound about the fellows rude
performance. So ! stopped and chat
ted with him.
He told me that he didn't know
one note from another, but that he d
had the nddle bug all his life. When
he told me that he was a plasterer l
looked at his hands. They were
neither rough nor stiffened. Bricky
told me that he always wore gloves
while plastering, not with the idea
of keeping his hands dainty, but so
as not to spoil them for his fddling.
Well, l took Bricky into my
Wichita class. Inside of six months
he had safe lead on all the rest
of them, even if l had been com
PEELED to make him unlearn all of his
ear-playing denominations.
Inside of couple of years | had
pushed Bricky, the plasterer, through
Wichti, Kaiser and KreHtzer, and he
didn't do half badly with the Dancle
show pieces that / occasionally let
him have to relieve the tedium Of
exercises.
"Bricky was tractable pupil. But
one evening, after he'd been working
at the violin under my direction for
about a year and a half, something
occurred to convince me that Bricky
wasn't to be fooled with. He was
bit out of form with his lesson and
in a moment of petulance l knocked
his bow up from the strings of his
violin with my bow. Bricky's bow
went flying across the room.
'Bricky had pair of those steely
blue eyes that good many Western
men of extraordinary nerve have
been provided with. He turned
those eyes upon me for about fifteen
straight seconds and there were
CLEANS of a tigerish topaz in them.
He didn't say a word, but he walked
over to a sofa in a corner of the
room. He deposited his violin upon
this sofa with great care. Then he
walked back to where / stood, turned
Tnnnd tnnR nndnr hn
from behind, toted me over to a win
dow Of the second story room as il
I'd been a setter pup, held me sus-
pended out of the window fer an
instant and then dropped me to the
ground.
1T was only a ten-foot drop and
the ground was soft from a recent
rain. No harm was done. didn't
take 1t to heart, particularly; after
I'd had time to think 1t over.
After that Bricky and l got on
perfectly we'll together, although |
never knocked his bow out of his
hand again. After two years / gave
up my Wichita class and went to
Denver to take a position as orches-
ira leader In theatre. A few years
later l quit music for a time and
went into business.
Occasionally my business called
me to Durango. Col. There wasn't
any worse town In the West at that
time than Durango. 1t was a Jump
ing-off place for bad men. Nearly
dozen marshals-none OF them a
craven either-had already, at that
period. been put away by the Duran
go gun-fghtsrS.
When l reached Durango one
afternoon in the summer of 1885
there was a lot Of excitement there.
Bud Caldwell had stuck up schin's
bank that day. He had most Of the
man-huntsrs OF Colorado ana New
Mexico tod In bowknots with fear
OF him at that time. Caldwell be-
longsd TO that class Of dsspsrudo..
OF which Bully the Kid was another
Szamplo-that Il, he killed whether
there was any necessity for II or not.
He had stOod sn whole camps, back