PART VIII.
OLD DADDY DEERING: THE COUNTRY FIDDLER Like Scotland's harper, Or Irish piper, with his droning lays, Before the spread of modern life and light The country fiddler slowly disappears.
DADDY DEERING.
I.
They were threshing on Farmer Jennings' place when Daddy made his very characteristic appearance.

Milton, a boy of thirteen, was gloomily holding sacks for the measurer, and the glory of the October day was dimmed by the suffocating dust, and poisoned by the smarting beards and chaff which had worked their way down his neck.

The bitterness of the dreaded task was deepened also by contrast with the gambols of his cousin Billy, who was hunting rats with Growler amid the last sheaves of the stack bottom.

The piercing shrieks of Billy, as he clapped his hands in murderous glee, mingled now and again with the barking of the dog.
The machine seemed to fill the world with its snarling boom, which became a deafening yell when the cylinder ran empty for a moment.

It was nearly noon, and the men were working silently, with occasional glances toward the sun to see how near dinner-time it was.