“What can all that mean?” asked I.

“Blast my old shoes if I know,” said one of the party.

We listened again and heard Hail Columbia!  Happy Land! played in first-rate style.

“That’s fine,” said I.

“Fine as silk, Colonel, and a leetle finer,” said another; “but hark! the tune is changed.”

We listened again, and the musician struck up in a brisk and lively manner, Over the Water to Charlie.

“That’s mighty mysterious,” said one of my friends.

“Can’t cipher it out nohow,” said another.

“A notch beyant my measure,” said a third.

“Then let’s see what it is,” said I, and off we dashed at a rapid gait.

As we approached the river, we saw to the right of the road a new clearing on a hill, from which several men were running down toward the river like wild Indians.  There appeared no time to be lost, so we all cut ahead for the crossing.  All this time the music kept growing stronger and stronger, every note distinctly saying, Over the Water to Charlie.

When we reached the crossing, we were astonished to see a man seated in a sulky in the middle of the river and playing for his life on a fiddle.  The horse was up to his middle in water, and it seemed as if the flimsy vehicle was ready to be swept away by the current.  Still the fiddler fiddled on composedly as if his life had been insured.  We thought he was mad, and shouted to him.  He heard us and stopped the music.

“You have missed the crossing,” shouted one of the men.

“I know I have,” replied the fiddler.

“If you go ten feet farther you will be drowned.”

“I know I shall.”

“Turn back,” cried the man.

“I can’t,” said the fiddler.

“Then how the deuce will you get out?”

“I’m sure I don’t know; come and help me.”

The men from the clearing, who understood the river, took our horses, rode up to the sulky, and after some difficulty succeeded in bringing the traveler safe to shore.  Then we recognized him as the worthy parson, who had played for us at a puppet show in Little Rock.

“You have had a narrow escape,” said we.

“I found that out an hour ago,” he said.  “I have been fiddling to the fishes all the time, and played everything I can play without notes.”

[Illustration:  THE PARSON FIDDLED]

“What made you think of fiddling in the time of such peril?” he was asked.

“I have found in my progress through life,” said he, “that there is nothing so well calculated to draw people together as the sound of a fiddle.  I might bawl for help till I was hoarse, and no one would stir a peg, but as soon as people hear the scraping of a fiddle, they will quit all other business and come to the spot in flocks.”

We laughed heartily at the knowledge the parson showed of human nature; and he was right.