Uncle told him that there was half a barrel of beer in the cellar: that there were several bottles of port wine in the pantry, and that there was a taste of whiskey and a few softer drinks on hand. By eight o’clock the program began to shape itself. Marvin undid his roll, at the first request, placed before my uncle a copy of “White Wings,” and asked, as the Hadfield bassoes had in the former days in the parlors of the “Linnet’s Nest,” and the “Blue Sign,” “Can t’ play it?” And uncle responded, “Hum it o’er!” Marvin bent down his head as if in the act of telling a secret, hummed it over for a few bars, when uncle, after fingering with his chords, struck the pitch, and began to vamp gloriously. “Wait till I play t’ introduction,” he said, and he hunched back, and confidently “introduced” the air to the satisfaction of all. Marvin sang “White Wings,” and after he had dampened his pipe with a noggin of whiskey, he asked uncle if he knew “I am a Friar of Orders Grey?” Uncle said, again, “Hum it o’er.” When the introduction had been given, Marvin began a tumbling performance on the low notes that won great applause. “Tha’ went so low, lad, that we couldna’ ’ear thee, eh, folks?” grinned “Fatty.” “Hear, hear! Hen-core, hen-core!” shouted the audience, but Marvin said that he’d better rest. Singing low tickled his whistle unduly. But uncle knew “Sally In Our Alley,” which Tom Fellows sang with a lift of his light brows at the high notes, and a crinkling of his chin as he bent his head to get the low ones. Tom had almost a feminine voice; a romantic chord ran through all his singing, so that he was at his best in an original song of his, which he had written shortly before and was having the bandmaster set to four-part music for the piano. “Hum it,” said uncle. And Tom went through the usual process until uncle had the key, the time, and the chords. Tom’s song, which was later published at his own expense, began: “Bright was the day, Bells ringing gay, When to church I brought my Sue. I felt so proud ’Mongst all the crowd”-- and Uncle Stanwood considerably increased his reputation for improvisation when at the end of the verse, where Tom lingered lovingly on the sentiment to the extent of four full rests, he introduced a set of trills! With this part of the program over, the company retired to the cellar, where there was a boarded floor, a man with a concertina, and a half-barrel of beer. There followed a square dance and some more singing, but the beer was the chief enjoyment.