Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 4 — page 198: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

7104. were married. The young folks continued to remain with Lena’s parents, and Ezry, silent, unkempt, and shambling as before, stayed on. Curiously enough, Bruce never bore him any grudge for his disaster; there was even an odd sort of camaraderie be- tween them—pawns in a strange game of fate. Lois continued to live quietly at home, and on occasion, when there was a meeting in the little country church, sitting over against the window in the stiff wooden pew, she seemed to Bruce to be a shining part of the window, like some little human saint. That winter Cyril, the crippled son of the Merriweathers ran away. He had got some queer notion of fiddling himself, having re- ceived the feeble but conscientious instruc- tion of Willy Kibbey. It was always be- lieved that Mrs. Merriweather, who had never been able to refuse their crippled boy anything, found means to supply him with money. He was gone a long time; long enough to have his little exultant day of hope, and his long enduring night of disil- lusionment. One day he came back—the best fiddler in the country-side—better even than Willy Kibbey. But in the beginning this had not It seemed to him that the place looked more ramshackle than he remembered it, owing partly, doubtless, to careless and cas- ual additions. The household seemed little changed; but Lena had grown very fat; her great, swollen face had an empurpled look about the cheeks; Bruce had become stooped, in an unconscieus attempt to spare his injured shoulder. Cyril helped eagerly; but his mother continued to spare him. In the evenings he played his fiddle—but noth- ing changed as on that former night—their ‘was no charm to restore Lena’s old beauty, nor Bruce’s strength. Finally they would all go off to bed, leaving him there alone: One day he went up to Lois’s little hill farm. It was hers now—her parents were dead. She rented the land, but the house she would always live in. It was like a shining casket for the exquisite housing of the small, shining jewel that was her per- son. There was about her and about her surroundings the trace of an infinite fine .ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, patience of perfection. A cold and gleaming sense of order streatged out from the little entry. : Lois was in her afternoon dress of rigor- ously polished gray percale, with a snowy apron, whose edge looked more like the carven lace of marble than mere knitted thread. A little, round, black onyx pin with a pearl in the center which Cyril re membered her mother to have worn, re- minded him oddly of Lois’s face—pearl-like amid the shining blackness of her lustrous *. hair. | ‘““T am glad to see you, Cyril,” said Lois in her precise way; “I have never seen you since—” A queer, indefinable change came over her face; it looked curiously duller. ‘““T know,” said Cyril. “It would have gone hard with him, Lois, if it hadn’t been for you—when you hurried him out, while they were all gaping at Bruce on the floor there—and I untied the horse—what were you thinking of, Lois?” “T was thinking there had been harm enough done,”’ said Lois. “The horse wandered back next day,” mused Cyril. “They said it had devil's marks on its flanks—Lois—you never held to that old superstition—”’ “A fiddle is a strange thing,” said Lois. “Tt seems to possess one. .See how it drove you, Cyril?” “‘ Mine is only a chimney-cdrner fiddle,” said Cyril, a little sadly. ‘It only chirps at night like a cricket in thé wall, Lois— wouldn’t you like to hear my cricket some day?” Lois smiled slowly. She looked at Cyril, whose elder she was by scarcely three years. There would always be something of the dreamer about Cyril, and a sort of shy, in- born gentleness. His clothes showed a shabby, pathetic care; the hard twill of the , goods had taken on the shining look of age. ¢ Lois looked down into the transparent re- cesses of her mind as into a crystal, and she saw what might well come to pass. The red fiddle had enticed away one lover, but might not Cyril’s cricket bring into her house a quiet, sober, and enduring affection? She said gently: ‘‘ Yes.” For them at least, the spell of the Red Fiddle was forever broken. 1Z A {(EOOO