FIDDLERS ERRANT _Robert Haven Schauffler_ 1
TURTLE EGGS FOR AGASSIZ _Dallas Lore Sharp_ 23
A FATHER TO HIS FRESHMAN SON _Edward Sanford Martin_ 45
INTENSIVE LIVING _Cornelia A. P. Comer_ 59
REMINISCENCE WITH POSTSCRIPT _Owen Wister_ 87
ON AUTHORS _Margaret Preston Montague_ 124
THE PROVINCIAL AMERICAN _Meredith Nicholson_ 130
ENTERTAINING THE CANDIDATE _Katharine Baker_ 173
FASHIONS IN MEN _Katharine Fullerton Gerould_ 201
A CONFESSION IN PROSE _Walter Prichard Eaton_ 225
THE PASSING OF INDOORS _Zephine Humphrey_ 252
THE CONTENTED HEART _Lucy Elliot Keeler_ 265
MUSICAL adventures largely depend on your instrument. Go traveling with a bassoon or clarionet packed in your trunk, and romance will pass you by. But far otherwise will events shape themselves if you set forth with a fiddle.
The moment I turned my back upon the humdrum flute and embraced the 'cello, that instrument of romance, things began happening thick and fast in a hitherto uneventful life. I found that to sally forth with your 'cello couchant under your arm, like a lance of the days of chivalry, was to invite adventure. You tempted Providence to make things interesting for you, up to the moment when you returned home and stood your fat, melodious friend in the corner on his one leg--like the stork, that other purveyor of joyful surprises.
One reason why the 'cellist is particularly liable to meet with musical adventures is because the nature of his talent is so plainly visible. The parcel under his arm labels him FIDDLER in larger scare-caps than Mr. Hearst ever invented for headlines. It is seen of all men. There is no concealment possible. For it would, indeed, be less practicable to hide your 'cello under a bushel than to hide a bushel under your 'cello.
The non-reducible obesity of this instrument is apt to bring you adventures of all sorts: wrathful sometimes, when urchins recognize it as a heaven-sent target for snowballs; or when adults audibly quote Dean Swift's asinine remark, 'He was a fiddler and therefore a rogue.' Absurd, sometimes, as when the ticket-chopper in the subway bars your path under the misapprehension that you are carrying a double-bass; and when the small boys at the exit offer you a _Saturday Evening Post_ in return for 'a tune on that there banjo.' But more often the episodes are pleasant, as when your bulky trademark enables some kindred spirit to recognize you as his predestined companion on impromptu adventures in music.