Evening star., 1932-08-13

| grand growth Of tall weeds IN q vacant
| lot. and the widest of wild In1uns In
| the various small boys Of and years
Of age who lived in the neighborhooo.
r
It was this Indian game which be-
| came the seasons sensation.
Templeton Jones still could see that
small Templeton Jones playing molan:
The exact rules Of the game had
vanished. but the big point renamed;
That was to snap the pistol at the
! foe. and shout, Bang! You're deadF
Just why the. oral imitation OF gun
fire needed to accompany the pop OF
| the cap-pistol. the Jones OF today was
too old to remember.
But 1t was essential.
"Bangl You're dead!"
The Indian" was supposed, at this
juncture. to fall down c'bite the dust'o
II he did not, a heated argument In
stantly began among the comoatants as
to why he did not.
IT said you were dead, you ought to
fall"
you didn't say I was deadl"
! IT did, I said Bang! You're dead,
didn't I, J!m?"
Big Chief Jim, who had been lurking
behind the protection Of gigantic
redwood, instantly came to the fore.
Course you said he's dead! He ought
| to fall down, when you said it."
Perhaps several other wild men added
| their quota to the dispute, from behind
as many monarchs Of the forest.
The victim yielded to the popular will.
| He Frustrated himself, whether prone
or supine, none cared.
| r
The third feature of those old days
which burned itself into the enduring
memory of Jones was the either which
a kind neighbor loaned to him.
Music hath charms to soothe the saw
age breast, also the infiamed tissue OF a
bad burn caused by quantity of caps
going off at one and the same time
outside the proper confines OF their
pistol.
The small Jones. the larger one re-
called, actually succeeded in forget
| ting his troubles for as much as half
| an hour at time. as he busted him
self with the legendary instrument OF
| Switzerland.
This particular specimen was so
| made that by the use of chart, slip
ped under the strings, a tyro could
| turn out tunes about as swiftly as he
could coordinate his eyes and fingers.
You struck the string at the place
marked / on the chart. and you struck
it as many times as the chart said.
| Then you leaped as nimbly as you
| could to 2, then to 3, and so on, so
! that Home. Sweet Home" and similar
| ditties became nothing more comph-
Gated than mere mathematical
progress
The beauty Of this instrument lay In
| the chords. which were created by rip
pling the plectrum over all the strings
a. once, as certain bars were held
down.
This enabled the veriest amateur to
do a credits BILE job as a musician: Tenn
/ pleton Jones often wondered afterward
why this clear-toned instrument so
easily played. was ever ousted in
American affections by the ukulele and
the like.
BY the time the small Jones Of yes
teryear emerged from his bed, after
several weeks of combined rest and
chicken broth, he was something Of q
either expert, as his friends would say
today.
He could play Home. Sweet Home, -
"The Blue Bells of Scotland" and a
forgotten melody. without recourse to
charts.
AS Templeton Jones. esq.,, sat eat
! ing his modern chicken broth he
thought. tiresomely, that he did not
seem to have profited much from his
early music lessons. But he loved
music. and that was a gain: maybe the
either had something to do with 1t.