- end_line
- 5615
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.921Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 5571
- text
- But the other girls were sufficient to do the work; me they wanted not.
The farmer looked out of his eyes at me, and the out-lookings of his
eyes said plainly to me--Thee we do not want; go from us; thou art one
too many; and thou art more than one too many. Then I said to the
woman--Hire me out to some one; let me work for some one.--But I spread
too wide my little story. I must make an end.
"The woman listened to me, and through her means I went to live at
another house, and earned wages there. My work was milking the cows, and
making butter, and spinning wool, and weaving carpets of thin strips of
cloth. One day there came to this house a pedler. In his wagon he had a
guitar, an old guitar, yet a very pretty one, but with broken strings.
He had got it slyly in part exchange from the servants of a grand house
some distance off. Spite of the broken strings, the thing looked very
graceful and beautiful to me; and I knew there was melodiousness lurking
in the thing, though I had never seen a guitar before, nor heard of one;
but there was a strange humming in my heart that seemed to prophesy of
the hummings of the guitar. Intuitively, I knew that the strings were
not as they should be. I said to the man--I will buy of thee the thing
thou callest a guitar. But thou must put new strings to it. So he went
to search for them; and brought the strings, and restringing the guitar,
tuned it for me. So with part of my earnings I bought the guitar.
Straightway I took it to my little chamber in the gable, and softly laid
it on my bed. Then I murmured; sung and murmured to it; very lowly, very
softly; I could hardly hear myself. And I changed the modulations of my
singings and my murmurings; and still sung, and murmured, lowly,
softly,--more and more; and presently I heard a sudden sound: sweet and
low beyond all telling was the sweet and sudden sound. I clapt my hands;
the guitar was speaking to me; the dear guitar was singing to me;
murmuring and singing to me, the guitar. Then I sung and murmured to it
with a still different modulation; and once more it answered me from a
different string; and once more it murmured to me, and it answered to me
with a different string. The guitar was human; the guitar taught me the
secret of the guitar; the guitar learned me to play on the guitar. No
music-master have I ever had but the guitar. I made a loving friend of
it; a heart friend of it. It sings to me as I to it. Love is not all on
one side with my guitar. All the wonders that are unimaginable and
unspeakable; all these wonders are translated in the mysterious
melodiousness of the guitar. It knows all my past history. Sometimes it
plays to me the mystic visions of the confused large house I never name.
Sometimes it brings to me the bird-twitterings in the air; and sometimes
it strikes up in me rapturous pulsations of legendary delights eternally
unexperienced and unknown to me. Bring me the guitar."
- title
- Chunk 3