66

path, bent under his heavy load, they say, Surely he is in league with the spirit of Jacob Stainer, or else some Tyrolese druid or wood nymph shows him the way."

Nicholas belongs to the class of village workers known as independent workmen, of whom there are but few left. Since it became necessary to import wood from far-away Hungary and Bosnia the violin industry has been almost entirely given over to two large firms, which furnish the home workers their rough materials, wood, etc., paying them at the rate of piecework. This is a great grief to Nicholas and his confrères, who believe only in hand-work, as did their fathers, their grandsires, and the great masters of lutherie before them. They cannot endure the thought of what might happen to their beautiful art—their two-century-old village craft-if it should ever be desecrated by the introduction of machinery. can blame them? To them this is an axiom :

And who

Given, a log of wood: make a fiddle." Of course Nicholas plays the violin. When the day's work is over, he takes his old Stradivarius from the case and fingers it lovingly. How he came by the instrument, which is undoubtedly genuine, is quite as much of a mystery to the villagers as where he finds his wood, inasmuch as they say he was never out of the village in his whole life-except on his wood

gathering pilgrimages, and they ought to know. Nicholas does not tell everything he knows. Some malicious folk who resent his reticence say he made it himself and that it is not a real "Strad "for even these German villagers use the barbarous mutilation of a noble name— except Nicholas. He pronounces the master's name with the full Latin enunciation just as it is printed in the lean old type now scarcely visible in the hollow chamber of his beloved violin: "Antonius Straduarius, Cremona 1730."

"They did not sell violins by the dozen

in those days, as farmers sell eggs," says Nicholas sadly as he rosins his bow. After the magic of this incantation there is a long sweep of the friendly bow, many little trills and cadences, rippling off into deep sonorous tones that emerge from some unknown depth and proclaim it just what it is labeled-a real Stradivarius.

To describe the playing of Nicholas would be like an attempt to paint a rainbow or to add luster to a sunset:

"Even as Amphion of old time played, Wielding deft bow,

I sat tranced and listened,

Soft cadence of theme he breathed."

Long into the night you may hear him pouring out his heart to his old friend, and you are glad, for you know they understand each other and are happy. So Auf wiedersehen, dear old Nicholas and Stradivarius. Leben sie wohl !

E are told on the best authority that the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden. The Person who planted this garden must have loved the idea. And some modern folk who set aside the Creator allow the paradisiacal garden, at least as a literary asset; for we are all more or less deep-set in nature.

Even Satan loved a garden-his one antediluvian grace, so far as we know and climbed about in it like a real boy. It was an orchard-garden, too, for we read that it held all manner of fruits, and must have exceeded in size my half-acre city plot, whose chief products are apples and pears, if one exclude the fruit of the vine. Its one historic tree must have been younger than these of mine with their crooked, gnarly branches, where younglings love to sit and swing, and eat, too, green fruit, though it was equal to holding the weight of one who looked down from it upon our great ancestors-one

whose agility, if not bulk, is beyond dispute.

When penalized for his evil-doing (according to the rabbis) to the extent of losing his legs, he called together his emissaries, and, making light of his affliction, recommended them to do their utmost with whatever legs and wings had been spared them. Thus his revenge was consummated. They, in turn, called together their hosts; and it was no eight-hour-a-day job he set them to do.

First

No anarchist was their master. The slugs worked longest hours because they were slowest. No equal wage to activity and sloth. If a creature will not work, neither shall he eat. If he cannot work fast, neither shall he sleep long. These were the two rules of the camp. of all, the slugs started for the day-lily bed, a great plot down my garden walk beyond the syringa arch, leaving a worse than serpent trail behind in their slimy course, and put to an end the tenderest early shoots, leaving the stumps featureless after they had done their utmost. To be sure, good Nature soon set to work at repairs, but that was nothing to their credit.