But these rare days passed away. As the country grew older it lost the
wholesome simplicity of pioneer days, and Daddy got a chance to play but
seldom. He no longer pleased the boys and girls--his music was too
monotonous and too simple. He felt this very deeply. Once in a while he
broke forth in protest against the changes.
"The boys I used to trot on m' knee are gittin' too high-toned. They
wouldn't be found dead with old Deering, and then the preachers are
gittin' thick, and howlin' agin dancin', and the country's filling up
with Dutchmen, so't I'm left out."
As a matter of fact, there were few homes now where Daddy could sit on
the table, in his ragged vest and rusty pantaloons, and play "Honest
John," while the boys thumped about the floor. There were few homes
where the old man was even a welcome visitor, and he felt this rejection
keenly. The women got tired of seeing him about, because of his
uncleanly habits of spitting, and his tiresome stories. Many of the old
neighbors died or moved away, and the young people went West or to the
cities. Men began to pity him rather than laugh at him, which hurt him
more than their ridicule. They began to favor him at threshing or at the
fall hog-killing.
"Oh, you're getting old, Daddy; you'll have to give up this heavy work.
Of course, if you feel able to do it, why, all right! Like to have you
do it, but I guess we'll have to have a man to do the heavy lifting, I
s'pose."
"I s'pose not, sir! I am jest as able to yank a hawg as ever, sir; yes,
sir, demmit--demmit! Do you think I've got one foot in the grave?"
Nevertheless, Daddy often failed to come to time on appointed days, and
it was painful to hear him trying to explain, trying to make light of it
all.
"M' caugh wouldn't let me sleep last night. A goldum leetle, nasty,
ticklin' caugh, too; but it kept me awake, fact was, an'--well, m' wife,
she said I hadn't better come. But don't you worry, sir; it won't happen
again, sir; no, sir."
His hands got stiffer year by year, and his simple tunes became
practically a series of squeaks and squalls. There came a time when the
fiddle was laid away almost altogether, for his left hand got caught in
the cog-wheels of the horse-power, and all four of the fingers on that
hand were crushed. Thereafter he could only twang a little on the
strings. It was not long after this that he struck his foot with the axe
and lamed himself for life.
As he lay groaning in bed, Mr. Jennings went in to see him and tried to
relieve the old man's feelings by telling him the number of times he had
practically cut his feet off, and said he knew it was a terrible hard
thing to put up with.
"Gol dummit, it ain't the pain," the old sufferer yelled, "it's the dum
awkwardness. I've chopped all my life; I can let an axe in up to the
maker's name, and hew to a hair-line; yes, sir! It was jest them dum new
mittens my wife made; they was s' slippery," he ended with a groan.
As a matter of fact, the one accident hinged upon the other. It was the
failure of his left hand, with its useless fingers, to do its duty, that
brought the axe down upon his foot. The pain was not so much physical as
mental. To think that he, who could hew to a hair-line, right and left
hand, should cut his own foot like a ten-year-old boy--that scared him.
It brought age and decay close to him. For the first time in his life
he felt that he was fighting a losing battle.
A man like this lives so much in the flesh, that when his limbs begin to
fail him everything else seems slipping away. He had gloried in his
strength. He had exulted in the thrill of his life-blood and in the
swell of his vast muscles; he had clung to the idea that he was strong
as ever, till this last blow came upon him, and then he began to think
and to tremble.
When he was able to crawl about again, he was a different man. He was
gloomy and morose, snapping and snarling at all that came near him, like
a wounded bear. He was alone a great deal of the time during the winter
following his hurt. Neighbors seldom went in, and for weeks he saw no
one but his hired hand, and the faithful, dumb little old woman, his
wife, who moved about without any apparent concern or sympathy for his
suffering. The hired hand, whenever he called upon the neighbors, or
whenever questions were asked, said that Daddy hung around over the
stove most of the time, paying no attention to any one or anything. "He
ain't dangerous 't all," he said, meaning that Daddy was not dangerously
ill.
Milton rode out from school one winter day with Bill, the hand, and was
so much impressed with his story of Daddy's condition that he rode home
with him. He found the old man sitting bent above the stove, wrapped in
a quilt, shivering and muttering to himself. He hardly looked up when
Milton spoke to him, and seemed scarcely to comprehend what he said.
Milton was much alarmed at the terrible change, for the last time he had
seen him he had towered above him, laughingly threatening to "warm his
jacket," and now here he sat, a great hulk of flesh, his mind flickering
and flaring under every wind of suggestion, soon to go out altogether.
In reply to questions he only muttered with a trace of his old spirit:
"I'm all right. Jest as good a man as I ever was, only I'm cold. I'll be
all right when spring comes, so 't I c'n git outdoors. Somethin' to warm
me up, yessir; I'm cold, that's all."
The young fellow sat in awe before him, but the old wife and Bill moved
about the room, taking very little interest in what the old man said or
did. Bill at last took down the violin. "I'll wake him up," he said.
"This always fetches the old feller. Now watch 'im."
"Oh, don't do that!" Milton said in horror. But Bill drew the bow across
the strings with the same stroke that Daddy always used when tuning up.
He lifted his head as Bill dashed into "Honest John," in spite of
Milton's protest. He trotted his feet after a little and drummed with
his hands on the arms of his chair, then smiled a little in a pitiful
way. Finally he reached out his right hand for the violin and took it
into his lap. He tried to hold the neck with his poor, old, mutilated
left hand, and burst into tears.
"Don't you do that again, Bill," Milton said. "It's better for him to
forget that. Now you take the best care of him you can to-night. I don't
think he's going to live long; I think you ought to go for the doctor
right off."
"Oh, he's been like this for the last two weeks; he ain't sick, he's
jest old, that's all," replied Bill, brutally.
And the old lady, moving about without passion and without speech,
seemed to confirm this; and yet Milton was unable to get the picture of
the old man out of his mind. He went home with a great lump in his
throat.
* * * * *
The next morning, while they were at breakfast, Bill burst wildly into
the room.
"Come over there, all of you; we want you."