Richmond Press, Inc.                          Richmond, VA                          1938

Twenty-Seventh Street Gang Again

Once, as I passed by, the gang was sitting on the curbstone, in conference. They spoke, wishing me good morning, with great politeness. So I paused for a moment and told them how to make a horse fiddle.

"Take a beer keg, stand it head up on a bridge board-walk, for a sounding-board, put rosin on the chines, lay a scantling across the chines, and haul it back and forth. It will make a hideous noise and rouse the whole neighborhood."

Nothing could exceed the stern and grave attention they gave me. Serious, somewhat surly eyes were fixed on mine, without ever shifting, while no word of either comment or inquiry came from their lips. I passed on, thinking that I only told them an amusing tale. But little had I calculated their ambition and enterprise.

Three nights later, just after I had retired to rest, which was late, as usual, I heard a strange, terrible and commanding sound. What could it be? I listened, uncertain whether to rouse the house and run for life, or arm myself and meet the monster when he came to the door.

The sound seemed to come from the side and rear of the house. I ran out on the great back porch and looked in the direction from whence it came. The little villains had taken me at my word. They had put a beer keg on the platform in the stairs that ran in flight after flight down the hill on Twenty-sixth street from Franklin to Main, and were sawing away for dear life. I was much relieved.

But how about the other denizens of the neighborhood? I heard windows going up, doors being opened, excited voices of peaceful citizens, asking one another what noise was that? The half-dressed heads of families began to come out of houses--there was a scurry of light feet funning down wooden stairs--and all was silence, except for the voices of indignant citizens, when at last they found the diabolical contrivance.

I wonder if anybody else recollects the horse fiddle? (What ghoulish glee! How they gloated over the fright and rage of their grown-up victims!)