Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, vol 2 | Page 9

sight of her face, watching from a
second floor window, was seen no longer. Her last day came. She had
risen from her bed; life and mind seemed for a moment to be restored
to her; and standing where she had stood so often, her form supported
by a half- closed shutter and a grasp on the sash, she looked into the
street once more, sighed hopelessly, and so died. It was her shade that
long watched at the windows; it was her waxen face, heavy with fatigue
and pain, that was dimly seen looking over the balusters in the evening.

THE RIVAL FIDDLERS
Before Brooklyn had spread itself beyond Greenwood Cemetery a

stone could be seen in Martense's Lane, south of that burial-ground,
that bore a hoof mark. A negro named Joost, in the service of the Van
Der Something-or-others, was plodding home on Saturday night, his
fiddle under his arm. He had been playing for a wedding in Flatbush
and had been drinking schnapps until he saw stars on the ground and
fences in the sky; in fact, the universe seemed so out of order that he
seated himself rather heavily on this rock to think about it. The
behavior of the stars in swimming and rolling struck him as especially
curious, and he conceived the notion that they wanted to dance. Putting
his fiddle to his chin, he began a wild jig, and though he made it up as
he went along, he was conscious of doing finely, when the boom of a
bell sent a shiver down his spine. It was twelve o'clock, and here he
was playing a dance tune on Sunday. However, the sin of playing for
one second on the Sabbath was as great as that of playing all day; so, as
long as he was in for it, he resolved to carry the tune to the end, and he
fiddled away with a reckless vehemence. Presently he became aware
that the music was both wilder and sweeter than before, and that there
was more of it. Not until then did he observe that a tall, thin stranger
stood beside him; and that he was fiddling too,--composing a second to
Joost's air, as if he could read his thought before he put it into execution
on the strings. Joost paused, and the stranger did likewise.
"Where de debble did you come frum?" asked the first. The other
smiled.
"And how did you come to know dat music?" Joost pursued.
"Oh, I've known that tune for years," was the reply. "It's called 'The
Devil's joy at Sabbath Breaking.'"
"You're a liar!" cried the negro. The stranger bowed and burst into a
roar of laughter. "A liar!" repeated Joost,--for I made up dat music dis
very minute."
"Yet you notice that I could follow when you played."
"Humph! Yes, you can follow."
"And I can lead, too. Do you know the tune Go to the Devil and Shake
Yourself?'"
"Yes; but I play second to nobody."
"Very well, I'll beat you at any air you try."
"Done!" said Joost. And then began a contest that lasted until daybreak.
The stranger was an expert, but Joost seemed to be inspired, and just as

the sun appeared he sounded, in broad and solemn harmonies, the
hymn of Von Catts:
"Now behold, at dawn of day, Pious Dutchmen sing and pray."
At that the stranger exclaimed, "Well, that beats the devil!" and striking
his foot angrily on the rock, disappeared in a flash of fire like a burst
bomb. Joost was hurled twenty feet by the explosion, and lay on the
ground insensible until a herdsman found him some hours later. As he
suffered no harm from the contest and became a better fiddler than ever,
it is supposed that the recording angel did not inscribe his feat of
Sabbath breaking against him in large letters. There were a few who
doubted his story, but they had nothing more to say when he showed
them the hoof-mark on the rock. Moreover, there are fewer fiddlers
among the negroes than there used to be, because they say that the
violin is the devil's instrument.

WYANDANK
From Brooklyn Heights, or Ihpetonga, "highplace of trees," where the
Canarsie Indians made wampum or sewant, and where they
contemplated the Great Spirit in the setting of the sun across the
meeting waters, to Montauk Point, Long Island has been swept by the
wars of red men, and many are the tokens of their occupancy. A
number of their graves were to be seen until within fifty years, as
clearly marked as when the warriors were laid there in the hope of
resurrection among the happy hunting grounds that lay to the west and
south. The casting of stones on the death-spots or graves