kindred and country, die at last in exile and in solitude.'FAT MEN AND BALD-HEADED MEN.
It ought to be the universal law that none but fat men and bald-headed men should be the heads of families, because they are always good natured, contented and easily managed. There is more music in a fat man's laugh than there is in a thousand orchestras or brass bands. Fat sides and bald heads are the symbols of music, innocence, and meek submission. O! ladies listen to the words of wisdom! Cultivate the society of fat men and bald-headed men, for "of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." And the fat women, God bless
their old sober sides--they are "things of beauty, and a joy forever."
THE VIOLIN, THE POET LAUREATE OF MUSIC.
How sweet are the lips of morning that kiss the waking world! How sweet is the bosom of night that pillows the world to rest. But sweeter than the lips of morning, and sweeter than the bosom of night, is the voice of music that wakes a world of joys and soothes a world of sorrows. It is like some unseen ethereal ocean whose silver surf forever breaks in song; forever breaks on valley, hill, and craig, in ten thousand symphonies. There is a melody in every sunbeam, a sunbeam in every melody; there is a flower in every song,
a love song in every flower; there is a sonnet in every gurgling fountain, a hymn in every brimming river, an anthem in every rolling billow. Music and light are twin angels of God, the first-born of heaven, and mortal ear and mortal eye have caught only the echo and the shadow of their celestial glories.
The violin is the poet laureate of music; violin of the virtuoso and master, fiddle of the untutored in the ideal art. It is the aristocrat of the palace and the hall; it is the democrat of the unpretentious home and humble cabin. As violin, it weaves its garlands of roses and camelias; as fiddle it scatters its modest violets. It is admired by the cultured for its magnificent powers and wonderful creations; it is loved by the millions for its simple melodies.
THE CONVICT AND HIS FIDDLE.
One bright morning, just before Christmas day, an official stood in the Executive chamber in my presence as Governor of Tennessee, and said: "Governor, I have been implored by a poor miserable wretch in the penitentiary to bring you this rude fiddle. It was made by his own hands with a penknife during the hours allotted to him for rest. It is absolutely valueless, it is true, but it is his peti-tion to you for mercy. He begged me to say that he has neither attorneys nor influential friends to plead for him; that he is poor, and all he asks is, that when the Governor shall sit at his own happy fireside on Christmas eve, with his own happy children around him, he will play one tune on this rough fiddle and think of a cabin far away in the mountains whose hearthstone is cold and desolate and surrounded by a family of poor little wretched, ragged children, crying for bread and waiting and listening for the footsteps of their father."
Who would not have been touched by such an appeal? The record was examined; Christmas eve came; the Governor sat that night at his own happy fireside, surrounded by his own happy children; and he played one tune to them on that rough fiddle. The hearthstone of the cabin in the mountains was bright and warm; a pardoned prisoner sat with his baby on his knee, surrounded by his rejoicing children, and in the presence of his happy wife, and although there was naught but poverty around him, his heart sang:
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"Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;" and then he reached up and snatched his fiddle down from the wall, and played
"Jordan is a hard road to travel."
A VISION OF THE OLD FIELD SCHOOL.
Did you never hear a fiddler fiddle? I have. I heard a fiddler fiddle, and the hey-dey-diddle of his frolicking fiddle called back the hap-py days of my boyhood. The old field schoolhouse with its batten doors creaking on wooden hinges, its windows innocent of glass, and its great, yawning fireplace, cracking and roaring and flaming like the infernal regions, rose from the dust of memory and stood once more among the trees. The limpid spring bubbled and laughed at the foot of the hill. Flocks of nimble, noisy boys turned somersaults and skinned the cat and ran and jumped half hammon on the old play ground. The grim old teacher stood in the door; he had no brazen-mouthed bell to ring then as we have now, but he shouted at the top of his voice: "Come to books!!!" And they came. Not to come meant "war and rumors of war." The backless benches, high above the floor, groaned under the weight of irrepress-
ible young America; the multitude of mischievous, shining faces, the bare legs and feet, swinging to and fro, and the mingled hum of happy voices, spelling aloud life's first lessons, prophesied the future glory of the State. The curriculum of the old field school was the same everywhere--one Webster's blue backed, elementary spelling book, one thumb-paper, one stone-bruise, one sore toe, and Peter Parley's Travels.
The grim old teacher, enthroned on his split bottomed chair, looked terrible as an army with banners; and he presided with a dignity and solemnity which would have excited the envy of the United States Supreme Court: I saw the school commissioners visit him, and heard them question him as to his system of teaching. They asked him whether, in geography, he taught that the world was round, or that the world was flat. With great dignity he replied: "That depends upon whar I'm teachin'. If my patrons desire me to teach the round system, I teach it; if they desire me to teach the flat system, I teach that."
At the old field school I saw the freshman class, barefooted and with pantaloons rolled up to the knees, stand in line under the ever uplifted rod, and I heard them sing the never-to-be-forgotten b-a ba's. They sang them in the olden times, and this is the way they sang: "b-a ba, b-e be, b-i bi-ba be bi, b-o bo, b-u bu-ba be bi bo bu."
I saw a sophomore dance a jig to the music of a dogwood sprout for throwing paper wads. I saw a junior compelled to stand on the dunce block, on one foot--(a la gander) for winking at his sweetheart in time of books, for failing to know his lessons, and for "various and sundry other high crimes and misdemeanors."
A twist of the fiddler's bow brought a yell from the fiddle, and in my dream, I saw the school come pouring out into the open air. Then followed the games of "prisoner's base," "town-ball," "Antney-over;" "bull-pen" and "knucks," the hand to hand engagements with yellow jackets, the Bunker Hill and Brandywine battles with bumblebees, the charges on flocks of geese, the storming of apple orchards and hornet's nests, and victories over hostile "setting" hens. Then I witnessed the old field school "Exhibition"--the wonderful "exhibition"--they call it Commencement now. Did you never witness an old field school "exhibition," far out in the country, and listen to its music? If you have not your life is a failure--you are a broken string in the harp of the universe. The old field school "exhibition" was the parade ground of the advance guard of civilization; it was the climax of great events in the olden times; and
vast assemblies were swayed by the eloquence of the budding sockless statesmen. It was at the old field school "exhibition" that the goddess of liberty always received a broken nose, and the poetic muse a black eye; it was at the old field school "exhibition" that Greece and Rome rose and fell, in seas of gore, about every fifteen minutes in the day, and,
The American eagle, with unwearied flight,
Soared upward and upward, till he soared out of sight.
It was at the old field school "exhibition" that the fiddle and the bow immortalized themselves. When the frowning old teacher advanced on the stage and nodded for silence, instantly there was silence in the vast assembly; and when the corps of country fiddlers, "one of which I was often whom," seated on the stage, hoisted the black flag, and rushed into the dreadful charge on "Old Dan Tucker," or "Arkansas Traveller," the spectacle was sublime. Their heads swung time; their bodies rocked time; their feet patted time; the muscles of their faces twitched time; their eyes winked time; their teeth ground time. The whizzing bows and screaming fiddles electrified the audience who cheered at every brilliant turn
