The Widow
Wheeler and her children thought no more of the railroad accident.
Captain Weldon, Deacon Jackson and his wife, and the Minister were
there; all the Selectmen, and the Town Clerk, and the Schoolmasters and
Schoolma'ams, and the Know-nothing Representative from the South Parish;
great, broad-shouldered farmers came in, with Baldwin apples in their
cheeks as well as in their cellars at home, and their trim tidy wives.
Eight or ten Irish children came also,--Bridget, Rosanna, Patrick, and
Michael, and Mr. And Mrs. O'Brien themselves. Aunt Kindly had her piano
there, and played and sung.
Didn't they all have a good time? Old Joe Roe, the black fiddler, from
Beaver Brook, Mill Village, was over there; and how he did play! how
they did dance! Commonly, as the young folks said, he could play only
one tune, "Joe Roe and I;" for it is true that his sleepy violin did
always seem to whine out, "_Joe Roe and I, Joe Roe and I, Joe Roe and
I_." But now the old fiddle was wide awake. He cut capers on it; and
made it laugh, and cry, and whistle, and snort, and scream. He held it
close to his ear, and rolled up the whites of his eyes, and laughed a
great, loud, rollicking laugh; and he made his fiddle laugh, too, right
out.
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