Transcribed from the 1904 Gay and Bird edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org [Picture: Book cover] A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS BY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN [Picture: Decorative graphic] LONDON GAY AND BIRD 1904 * * * * * THIS STORY APPEARS IN ‘THE VILLAGE WATCHTOWER.’ * * * * * _All rights reserved_ I “Goodfellow, Puck and goblins, Know more than any book. Down with your doleful problems, And court the sunny brook. The south-winds are quick-witted, The schools are sad and slow, The masters quite omitted The lore we care to know.” EMERSON’S _April_. “FIND the three hundred and seventeenth page, Davy, and begin at the top of the right-hand column.” The boy turned the leaves of the old instruction book obediently, and then began to read in a sing-song, monotonous tone: “‘One of Pag-pag’”— “Pag-a-ni-ni’s” “‘One of Paggernyner’s’ (I wish all the fellers in your stories didn’t have such tough old names!) ‘most dis-as-ter-ous triumphs he had when playing at Lord Holland’s.’ (Who was Lord Holland, uncle Tony?) ‘Some one asked him to im-provise on the violin the story of a son who kills his father, runs a-way, becomes a high-way-man, falls in love with a girl who will not listen to him; so he leads her to a wild country site, suddenly jumping with her from a rock into an a-b-y-s-s’” “Abyss.” “‘—a—rock—into—an—abyss, where they disappear for ever. Paggernyner listened quietly, and when the story was at an end he asked that all the lights should be distinguished.’” “Look closer, Davy.” “‘Should be _ex_tinguished. He then began playing, and so terrible was the musical in-ter-pre-ta-tion of the idea which had been given him that several of the ladies fainted, and the sal-salon-s_a_lon, when relighted, looked like a battle-field.’ Cracky! Wouldn’t you like to have been there, uncle Tony? But I don’t believe anybody ever played that way, do you?” “Yes,” said the listener, dreamily raising his sightless eyes to the elm-tree that grew by the kitchen door. “I believe it, and I can hear it myself when you read the story to me. I feel that the secret of everything in the world that is beautiful, or true, or terrible, is hidden in the strings of my violin, Davy, but only a master can draw it from captivity.”