Jim's mother did
not care for music, and her son's preliminary scra-
ping tortured her. Jim tucked the old fiddle under
one round boy-cheek and played in the hot attic,
with wasps buzzing around him; and he spent his
pennies for catgut, and he learned to mend fiddle-
strings; and finally came a proud Wednesday after-
noon when there were visitors in Madame's school,
and he stood on the platform, with Miss Acton
playing an accompaniment on the baby grand piano,
and he managed a feeble but true tune on his violin.
It was all for little Lucy, but little Lucy cared no
more for music than his mother; and while Jim was
playing she was rehearsing in the depths of her mind
the little poem which later she was to recite; for
this adorable little Lucy was, as a matter of course,
to figure in the entertainment. It therefore happened
that she heard not one note of Jim Patterson's pain-
fully executed piece, for she was saying to herself
in mental singsong a foolish little poem, beginning:
There was one little flower that bloomed
Beside a cottage door.
When she went forward, little darling blue-clad
figure, there was a murmur of admiration; and when
she made mistakes straight through the poem, saying,
There was a little flower that fell
On my aunt Martha's floor,
for beginning, there was a roar of tender laughter
and a clapping of tender, maternal hands, and every-
body wanted to catch hold of little Lucy and kiss her.
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