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No, Antone, I have told thee many times, no, thou shalt
not sell it until I am gone.
But I need money; what good is that old fiddle to thee?
The very crows laugh at thee when thou art trying to play.
Thy hand trembles so thou canst scarce hold the bow. Thou
shalt go with me to the Blue to cut wood to-morrow. See to
it thou art up early.
What, on the Sabbath, Antone, when it is so cold? I get
so very cold, my son, let us not go to-morrow.
Yes, to-morrow, thou lazy old man. Do not I cut wood
upon the Sabbath? Care I how cold it is? Wood thou shalt
cut, and haul it too, and as for the fiddle, I tell thee I will sell
it yet. Antone pulled his ragged cap down over his low
heavy brow, and went out. The old man drew his stool up
nearer the fire, and sat stroking his violin with trembling fingers
and muttering, Not while I live, not while I live.
Five years ago they had come here, Peter Sadelack, and his
wife, and oldest son Antone, and countless smaller Sadelacks,
here to the dreariest part of south-western Nebraska, and had
taken up a homestead. Antone was the acknowledged master
of the premises, and people said he was a likely youth, and
would do well. That he was mean and untrustworthy every
one knew, but that made little difference. His corn was better
tended than any in the county, and his wheat always yielded
more than other mens.
Of Peter no one knew much, nor had any one a good word
to say for him. He drank whenever he could get out of Antones
sight long enough to pawn his hat or coat for whiskey.
Indeed there were but two things he would not pawn, his
pipe and his violin. He was a lazy, absent minded old fellow,
who liked to fiddle better than to plow, though Antone surely
got work enough out of them all, for that matter. In the
house of which Antone was master there was no one, from
the little boy three years old, to the old man of sixty, who did
not earn his bread. Still people said that Peter was worthless,
and was a great drag on Antone, his son, who never drank,
and was a much better man than his father had ever been.
Peter did not care what people said. He did not like the country,
nor the people, least of all he liked the plowing. He was
very homesick for Bohemia. Long ago, only eight years ago
by the calendar, but it seemed eight centuries to Peter, he had
been a second violinist in the great theatre at Prague. He had
gone into the theatre very young, and had been there all his
life, until he had a stroke of paralysis, which made his arm so
weak that his bowing was uncertain. Then they told him he
could go. Those were great days at the theatre. He had plenty
to drink then, and wore a dress coat every evening, and there
were always parties after the play. He could play in those
days, ay, that he could! He could never read the notes well, so
he did not play first; but his touch, he had a touch indeed, so
Herr Mikilsdoff, who led the orchestra, had said. Sometimes
now Peter thought he could plow better if he could only bow
as he used to. He had seen all the lovely women in the world
there, all the great singers and the great players. He was in the
orchestra when Rachel played, and he heard Liszt play when
the Countess dAgoult sat in the stage box and threw the master
white lilies. Once, a French woman came and played for
weeks, he did not remember her name now. He did not remember
her face very well either, for it changed so, it was
never twice the same. But the beauty of it, and the great hunger
men felt at the sight of it, that he remembered. Most of all
he remembered her voice. He did not know French, and
could not understand a word she said, but it seemed to him
that she must be talking the music of Chopin. And her voice,
he thought he should know that in the other world. The last
night she played a play in which a man touched her arm, and
she stabbed him. As Peter sat among the smoking gas jets
down below the footlights with his fiddle on his knee, and
looked up at her, he thought he would like to die too, if he
could touch her arm once, and have her stab him so. Peter
went home to his wife very drunk that night. Even in those
days he was a foolish fellow, who cared for nothing but music
and pretty faces.
It was all different now. He had nothing to drink and little
to eat, and here, there was nothing but sun, and grass, and
sky. He had forgotten almost everything, but some things he
remembered well enough. He loved his violin and the holy
Mary, and above all else he feared the Evil One, and his son
Antone.
The fire was low, and it grew cold. Still Peter sat by the fire
remembering. He dared not throw more cobs on the fire; Antone
would be angry. He did not want to cut wood tomorrow,
it would be Sunday, and he wanted to go to mass.
Antone might let him do that. He held his violin under his
wrinkled chin, his white hair fell over it, and he began to play
Ave Maria. His hand shook more than ever before, and at
last refused to work the bow at all. He sat stupefied for a
while, then arose, and taking his violin with him, stole out
into the old sod stable. He took Antones shot-gun down
from its peg, and loaded it by the moonlight which streamed
in through the door. He sat down on the dirt floor, and
leaned back against the dirt wall. He heard the wolves howling
in the distance, and the night wind screaming as it swept
over the snow. Near him he heard the regular breathing of
the horses in the dark. He put his crucifix above his heart, and
folding his hands said brokenly all the Latin he had ever
known, Pater noster, qui in calum est. Then he raised his
head and sighed, Not one kreutzer will Antone pay them to
pray for my soul, not one kreutzer, he is so careful of his
money, is Antone, he does not waste it in drink, he is a better
man than I, but hard sometimes. He works the girls too hard,
women were not made to work so. But he shall not sell thee,
my fiddle, I can play thee no more, but they shall not part us.
We have seen it all together, and we will forget it together,
the French woman and all. He held his fiddle under his chin
a moment, where it had lain so often, then put it across his
knee and broke it through the middle. He pulled off his old
boot, held the gun between his knees with the muzzle against
his forehead, and pressed the trigger with his toe.
In the morning Antone found him stiff, frozen fast in a
pool of blood. They could not straighten him out enough to
fit a coffin, so they buried him in a pine box. Before the funeral
Antone carried to town the fiddle-bow which Peter had
forgotten to break. Antone was very thrifty, and a better man
than his father had been.
The Mahogany Tree, May 21, 1892
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