The Donkey greeted Buddie with a careless nod, and remarked, as if antic.i.p.ating a comment he had heard many times:
"Oh, yes; I play everything _by ear_."
"Please keep on playing," said Buddie, taking a seat on another clump of reindeer moss.
"I intended to," said the Donkey; and the random chords changed to a crooning melody which wonderfully pleased Buddie, whose opportunities to hear music were sadly few. As for the White Blackbird, he tucked his little head under his wing and went fast asleep.
"Well, what do you think of it?" asked the Donkey, putting down the lute.
"Very nice, sir," answered Buddie, enthusiastically; though she added to herself: The idea of saying sir to an animal! "Would you please tell me your name?" she requested.
The Donkey pawed open a saddle-bag, drew forth with his teeth a card, and presented it to Buddie, who spelled out the following:
PROFESSOR BRAY TENORE BARITONALE TEACHER OF SINGING ALL METHODS CONCERTS AND RECITALS
While Buddie was reading this the Donkey again picked up his instrument and thrummed the strings.
"Did you ever see a donkey play a lute?" said he. "That"s an old saw,"
he added.
"I never saw a donkey before," said Buddie.
"You haven"t traveled much," said the other. "The world is full of them."
"This is the farthest I"ve ever been from home," confessed Buddie, feeling very insignificant indeed.
"And how far may that be?"
Buddie couldn"t tell exactly.
"But it can"t be a great way," she said. "I live in the log house by the lake."
"Pooh!" said the Donkey. "That"s no distance at all." Buddie shrank another inch or two. "I"m a great traveler myself. All donkeys travel that can. If a donkey travels, you know, he _may_ come home a horse; and to become a horse is, of course, the ambition of every donkey!"
"Is it?" was all Buddie could think of to remark. What could she say that would interest a globe-trotter?
"Perhaps you have an old saw you"d like reset," suggested the Donkey, still thrumming the lute-strings.
Buddie thought a moment.
"There"s an old saw hanging up in our woodshed," she began, but got no farther.
"Hee-haw! hee-haw!" laughed the Donkey. "Thistles and cactus, but that"s rich!" And he hee-hawed until the tears ran down his nose. Poor Buddie, who knew she was being laughed at but didn"t know why, began to feel very much like crying and wished she might run away.
"Excuse these tears," the Donkey said at last, recovering his family gravity. "Didn"t you ever hear the saying, A burnt child dreads the fire?"
Buddie nodded, and plucked up her spirits.
"Well, that"s an old saw. And you must have heard that other very old saw, No use crying over spilt milk."
Another nod from Buddie.
"Here"s my setting of that," said the Donkey; and after a few introductory chords, he sang:
""Oh, why do you cry, my pretty little maid, With a Boo-hoo-hoo and a Heigho?"
"I"ve spilled my milk, kind sir," she said, And the Cat said, "Me-oh! my-oh!"
"No use to cry, my pretty little maid, With a Boo-hoo-hoo and a Heigho."
"But what shall I do, kind sir?" she said, And the Cat said, "Me-oh! my-oh!"
"Why, dry your eyes, my pretty little maid, With a Boo-hoo-hoo and a Heigho."
"Oh, thank you, thank you, sir," she said, And the Cat said, "Me-oh! my-oh!""
"How do you like my voice?" asked the Donkey, in a tone that said very plainly: "If you don"t like it you"re no judge of singing."
Buddie did not at once reply. A professional critic would have said, and enjoyed saying, that the voice was of the hit-or-miss variety; that it was pitched too high (all donkeys make that mistake); that it was harsh, rasping and unsympathetic, and that altogether the performance was "not convincing."
Now, Little One, although Buddie was not a professional critic, and neither knew how to wound nor enjoyed wounding, even _she_ found the Donkey"s voice harsh; but she did not wish to hurt his feelings--for donkeys _have_ feelings, in spite of a popular opinion to the contrary.
And, after all, it was pretty good singing for a donkey. Critics should not, as they sometimes do, apply to donkeys the standards by which nightingales are judged. So Buddie was able to say, truthfully and kindly:
"I think you do very well; very well, indeed."
It was a small tribute, but the Donkey was so blinded by conceit that he accepted it as the greatest compliment.
"I _ought_ to sing well," he said. "I"ve studied methods enough. The more methods you try, you know, the more of a donkey you are."
"Oh, yes," murmured Buddie, not understanding in the least.
"Yes," went on the Donkey; "I"ve taken the Donkesi Method, the Sobraylia Method, the Thistlefixu Method--"
"I"m afraid I don"t quite know what you mean by "methods,"" ventured Buddie.
The Donkey regarded her with a pitying smile.
"A method," he explained, "is a way of singing "Ah!" For example, in the Thistlefixu Method, which I am at present using, I fill my mouth full of thistles, stand on one leg, take in a breath three yards long, and sing "Ah!" The only trouble with this method is that the thistles tickle your throat and make you cough, and you have to spray the vocal cords twice a day, which is considerable trouble, especially when traveling, as _I_ always am."
"I should think it _would_ be," said Buddie. "Won"t you sing something else?"
"I"m a little hoa.r.s.e," apologized the singer.
"That"s what you want to be, isn"t it?" said Buddie, misunderstanding him.
"Hee-haw!" laughed the Donkey. "Is that a joke? I mean my _throat_ is hoa.r.s.e."
"And the rest of you is donkey!" cried Buddie, who could see a point as quickly as any one of her age.
"There"s something to that," said the other, thoughtfully. "Now, if the _hoa.r.s.eness_ should spread--"