Books › Blue Book v082 n01 [1945-11], 1945 › scan 103
Scan 103
Blue Book v082 n01 [1945-11], 1945
64 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Lochinvar swept the bow surely across a string, giving off a bell-clear tone. "Match that, an' we'll try 'Kiss Waltz'."
3Miss Flossie blushed delicately on the back of her neck and mashed various combinations of keys, until Lochinvar yelled: "That's it! Now, come on!" He swung into the old favorite with swift certainty; he was swaying, and his right foot was patting out time.
5But Miss Flossie floundered, unable to keep within chording distance of the fiddle Gran'pa Poteet had brought out of Ca'liny to win a moonshiner's daughter in Kentucky's hills. It was dismal; on the organ's side, it was a wilderness of discord.
7"Keep a-hittin' 'em!" Lochinvar cried. "You'll find it d'rectly." The room rang brightly with the voice of the fiddle.
9WHEN it was ended, with a flourish of the bow, Miss Flossie wailed: "I was dreadful! You play, Mist' P'teet. I didn't dream you were such a violinist!"
11"I bet you never dreamed nothin' 'bout me," Lochinvar said boldly. Then he saw her look of grim primness. "Whut you want me to play?" he asked meekly. (He ought to be going. The convict was getting farther away all the time, but this was a tender moment: He was at last playing for Miss Flossie, and he was not disposed to let anything interfere with this delight.)
13"Play whatever you wish," she told him. "I'm right fond of the violin." She sat on the sofa.
15Lochinvar's heart bumped. "All my folks is musicky," he said. "Now, here's a mixtry of tunes I've picked up in my roamin's from Yaller Rabbit to Vinegar Bend."
17Whereupon he shucked his coat and played. He stood by the organ and lost himself in a medley of old tunes. Chin on fiddle, face very sad, he sang with the bow, moaned with the bow, laughed with the bow—and the patting of his foot was a tune's heart-beat. It was music from the hills and hollows of America, music born in old Ireland and Scotland and England to soothe the growing-pains of early America . . . Music of pioneer campfires . . . Music of the slave's heart as he sang his low, sad minors in the hot, tangled swamp he was making into endless vistas of soft, cruel cotton . . . Music of the master, who stepped the mincing minuet on the high-polished floor that was salty beneath its sheen with the black singer's sweat.
19Mr. Poteet knew none of this. He was playing tunes he knew and loved, and it was music out of the vast combinations of influences and beings whence he had sprung. The bow leaped high, and the bow dragged low, and sweet tunes flowed from beneath the bow.
21Miss Flossie had to shut her eyes to believe her ears. Was this the man whom Todd Gorman had belittled to her as "a piece of floatin' white trash that had better float on to other parts?" Was this the man Mr. Gorman was threatening to complain to the Game and Fish Commission about, because he kept starved hounds that were a menace to wild turkey and other game? Surely not! Or perhaps Mr. Gorman was prejudiced. She smiled covertly.
23The bow was still racing when the howling began under the window. It was a sad wailing, dismal with pain, rising and falling, lingering on the air and trailing out into a quavery minor:
25"Ahhh—ooohhhhoohhh—ooohhh-hhhoo—Ahhho000—"
27Lochinvar wheeled to the window. "Shet up, Fanny!" he bellowed. And, pridefully, to Miss Flossie, who was wide-eyed on the sofa: "That's my Fanny. She al'us does that when I play."
29"Hey! Miss Flossie! Mr. Poteet!" It was a boy's voice that had arrived at the pyrotechnical state of vocal change known as "the goslins." "Shut up, Fanny! Hey, Miss Flossie!"
31"Something's wrong!" Miss Flossie gasped. "Hear his voice flicker!" She hurried to the window, called: "Come in, Juke. What's wrong?"
33The rangy, big-footed boy came in, and fast. He was panting; his blue eyes were popped, and his freckles stood out against his pale, excited face. His stiff red hair was in a state.
35"It's a man-hunt!" he announced. "He's in the swamp, an'—"
37"Who?" Miss Flossie cried. "Who's in the swamp?"
39"The convict cotton-picker that escaped from the Hull Plantation, over in Duckett County, yestiddy evenin'."
41"Oh!" she gasped, twitching throughout. "A convict!"
43"Yes'm. A plane's been circlin', lookin' for him, all mornin'. A cordon's been th'owed aroun' the swamp, an'—"
45"It's a big swamp," Lochinvar said calmly as he replaced fiddle in case. "They got bloodhoun's on his trail yet?"
47"They had 'em, but the houn's lost his trail t'other side the lake up there. I'd like to he'p ketch 'im, I would! If Jim Buck was here, he'd be in the thick of it. Dammit all, I'm big enough to—"
49"Juke!" Miss Flossie scolded. "Don't be profane before a lady."
51"Aw, hell, I forgot," he said contritely. "Why, Lord A'mighty—'scuse me, Miss Flossie. I—"
53"I got to go," Lochinvar broke in. "I'll take Fanny with me."
55"Lemme keep her," Juke begged. "If I git her on his trail, I'll—"
57"Fanny aint a bloodhoun'. Besides, you might git hurt, boy."
59"Me?" It came out falsetto. Juke reddened. "Me?" he repeated, managing a froggy bass this time. "Look, Fanny went to school with me today. At reecess we played a game, an' she's a good bloodhoun': We'd let her smell a boy's hank'chief or his shirt-tail, an' then we'd blindfold her while he run off an' hid. She'd trail him right down, she would, ever' time. If I had me a piece of that desp'rado's clo'es, I c'd ketch him with Fanny, I could!"
61"She's got a pow'ful nose, all right," Lochinvar conceded. He turned to Miss Flossie and said with stiff, courtly bow: "I'll come back when things quiet down. We'll play 'Kiss Waltz' some more."
63"What if he comes here?" she asked. "I'm scared, Mist' P'teet!"
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