"You ought," said Peppers. "Your grandpap was there, eatin' dirt an' crawlin' on his belly."
We roared, and while the tavern was still shaking with it, Roy came in carrying an old and badly battered fiddle under his arm. "Boys," he said timidly, "furse all you want to, but don't start nothin'." Then he gave the fiddle to Peppers, and came over to where we were seated. "Quiller," he said, "I reckon you all want a bite o' dinner."
I answered that we did. "Well," he apologised, "we didn't have your name in the pot, but we'll dish you up something, an' you can give it a lick an' a promise." Then he gathered up some empty dishes from a table and went out.
Peppers was thumping the fiddle strings with his thumb, and screwing up the keys. His sense of melody was in a mood to overlook many a defect, and he presently thrust the fiddle under his chin and began to saw it. Then he led off with a bellow, "Come all ye merry maidens an' listen unto me."
But the old fiddle was unaccustomed to so vigorous a virtuoso, and its bridge fell with a bang. The Parson blurted an expletive, inflected like the profane. Then he straightened the bridge, gave the fiddle a tremendous saw, and resumed his bellow. But with the accident, his first tune had gone glimmering, and he dropped to another with the agility of an acrobat.
"In eighteen hundred an' sixty-five I thought I was quite lucky to find myself alive. I saddled up old Bald Face my business to pursue, An' I went to drivin' steers as I used for to do."
The fiddle was wofully out of tune, and it rasped and screeched and limped like a spavined colt, but the voice of Peppers went ahead with the bellow.
"But the stillhouse bein' close an' the licker bein' free I took to the licker, an' the licker took to me. I took to the licker, till I reeled an' I fell, An' the whole cussed drove went a-trailin' off to hell."
Ump arose and waved his pitcher. "Hold up, Parson," he said. "Here's to them merry maids that got lost in the shuffle. 'Tain't like you to lose 'em."
The suggestion was timely. The song ran to fifty-nine verses, and no others printable.
Peppers dropped the fiddle and seized the pitcher. "Correct," he roared. "Here's to 'em. May the Lord bless 'em, an' bind 'em, an' tie their hands behind 'em, an' put 'em in a place where the devil can't find 'em."
"Nor you," mumbled Ump in the echo.