Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ISRTJL’S BARGAIN IEN I was at college after the war, clothing was very scarce; there was not a dress suit in college, and very few new suits of any kind. I remember my best coat was made out of an old cloth skirt of my mother’s. Billy Logan, however, tall and blond, was a swell, and in his third year he turned up with a brand-new suit: long frock- coat, lavender trousers, and a beaver hat that was dazzling. He was simply a howler, and caught Miss Mabel, the Doctor’s pretty daughter,
out of hand.
Isrul was the fiddler of the town (as black as your boot), and though he could not make a small city a great one, he could play the fiddle. He was also a drunkard and a thief. He and Billy Logan were great friends. He considered himself a swell also. But the night before the 1st of April, 1869 (on whichnight we always had a calathump, followed the next night by
a ball ), Isrul was sulky, owing partly to a recent and powerful sermon against fiddling, by the Eev. Amos Brown, and partly to a difference they had had about a dusky
sister
in the Rev. Amos’s congregation, in which the Rev. Amos had come off victor. When we, as usual, approached him about the music for
the ball, he announced that he had
done gin up fiddlin’ and gone to seekin’. It took several stiff drinks from a large bottle, obtained for the festivities by Billy Logan, and a sight of Billy’s new suit to soften him. Billy, a little mellow, even put the suit on to show him how he would look when he should lead his partner up the floor to his music. Up to the top of the room he swaggered, turned with a swing, shouted, in IsruPs tone,
S'lute your pardners, and gave a long, low bow as he lifted the bottle to his lips. Isrul’s countenance relaxed.
TJmh! he declared.
Whar meh fiddle ? Ef I jest had a…
