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Waiting For The End

Waiting For The End image
Parent Issue
Day
20
Month
August
Year
1897
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Up the stairway which leads to the basement of the building floated a soft, tremoüous whisper of muslc, says the Boston Journal. The Idler who heard it followed the clew of melody until he found an aged colored man, whose withered flngers caressed the strings of a banjo. Hls lips were slightly parted with a smlle and he looked upwa.rd with half-closed eyes. When he paused in his performance the auditor applauded and re-marked: "Having a good time all to yourself, uncle?" "Yessuh. I done had er little 'spare time an' I done put it in praetize-in'." "That don't sound mueh like the ordinary banjo music." "No, suh. Dat'a er different kin'." "Oan't you play reels and bTeakdowns. Maybe they're too quick for an old man like yourself?" "Too quick foti me? No'ndeedy. I done gót cle&n pas' dem long ago. I's got mo' on my min' dan he'pin' de young folks twis' deh foota at er pahty. Dem dat yoh wus lis'nin' to was hymnchunes" "Hymn tunes on a banjo?" "I done de bes' I oould," he replied, apologetically. "But what gavo you the idea?" "De good book," he answered, reverentially. "I's gettin' 'long in y'uhs, I is, an' when I called ter mlnd 'bout de hahps o' gold it done sot me ter thinkin'. I didn't had no early 'vantages, an' I doesn't speck I could er lun ter play on de hahp nohow. But I ain't 'seouraged, an' whenebber I gits de chance I comes hyuh an' tetches de strings, 'cause I's sho dat w'en I shows 'em I ain't gwinter 'sturb de hahmonies iey'll let me set 'back some place whah I won' be noticed, an' play 'long wif' 'em in de way dat I've used to."

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Democrat