think it's a bad sign, that's all--to break down so in the
middle of a tune."

"Darn the sign!" exclaimed Harvey, "I wanted to hear that played
through."

"You remember Willie Reene?" Luther turned his eyes, still unnaturally
bright with excitement, towards George Olver.

"Ay, I remember," said George Olver. "I was goin' mackerellin' with ye
myself that time, only I wrinched my wrist so."

[Illustration: "Good Night"]

"We was out on deck together," Luther continued. "I was lying down,--it
was a strange, warmish sort of a night--and Willie played. He played a
long time. It was just in the middle of a tune he was playin',
that--snap! the string went in just that way. I never thought anything
about it. I tried to laugh him out of it, and he laughed, but says he,
'It's a bad sign, Lute.' Likely it had nothin' to do with it, but I think
of it sometimes, and then it seems as though I must go to that same place
and look for him again. I never done anything harder than when I left him
there."

"You done the best you could," George Olver answered stoutly, "They said
you dove for him long and long after it wasn't no use."

"No use," Luther repeated, shaking his head sadly and abstractedly; "no
use."

"There's naught in a sign, anyway," George Olver affirmed.

"They don't worry me much, you can depend"--the player looked up at
length with a singularly bright and gentle smile. "But Grannie, she
believes in 'em, truly. She's got a sign in a dream for everything,
Grannie has so I hear lots of it."

Harvey Dole had quite recovered by this time from his tearfully
sentimental mood.

"Now it's strange," he began, with an air of mysterious solemnity; "there
was three nights runnin' that I dreamed I found a thousand-dollar bill to
the right hand corner of my bury drawer, and every mornin' when I woke up
and went to git it--it wa'n't there, so I know the rats must 'a' carried
it off in the night, and a pretty shabby trick to play on a feller,
too--but then you can't blame the poor devils for wantin' a little pin
money.

"Did I ever tell ye how Uncle Randal tried to clear 'em out 'o his barn?
Wall, he traded with Sim Peck up to West Wallen, a peck o' clams for an
old cat o' hisn, that was about the size, Uncle Randal said, of a
yearlin' calf, and he turned her into the barn along o' the rats, and
shut the door, and the next mornin', he went out and there was a few
little pieces of fur flyin' around and devil a--devil a cat!