OCR Text |
Show FIDDLER FOUND THE KEYNOTE. The old Sixth street bridge was a suspension sus-pension bridge, and in connection therewith there-with a story used to be told. Everybody knows that soldiers In crossing a suspension suspen-sion bridge must break step and bands are not allowed to play marches, because of the cumulative force of the vibrations, which are apt to either destroy the bridge completely or crystallise the Iron cables. Now. sound is vibration, and this explanation, not very scientifically put here. Is the basis of the story, remembering re-membering that every object la supposed to have a keynote which, when struck on a musical Instrument, evokes responsive vibrations In the said object- The story goes that many years ago an old man. carrying a fiddle In a case, once started across the bridge without paying toll. He was called back by the toilkeeper. protested his Inability to pay. but was not allowed to cross. Threatening Threaten-ing vengeance, the old fiddler seated himself him-self on the wharf under the Allegheny end of the bridge and began to scrape away on his fiddle for hours, apparently trying all sorts of notes, half notes and combinations of notes and chords. . Suddenly he seemed to find what he sought, for his face lighted up and he began to scrape steadily on a certain chord. A moan went through the bridge. Faster played the old man. and the wire cables fairly sang in response to the. wild notes of the fiddle. Furiously the old fiddler fid-dler scraped away and the cables began to vibrate, slowly at first, the vibrations growing stronger and stranger as the keynote sounded on the violin. The bridge began to tremble, then to sway. By this time the toll keepers saw something some-thing was up. for the pedestrians on the bridge began to run, drivers whipped up their horses, men and women with blanched fares declined to set foot on either end of the structure. A messenger (there were no telephones then) was dispatched dis-patched for the superintendent, and he came running. The old - fiddler was pointed out and a Constable was ordered to arrest him, but. there.-being no suspicious suspi-cious person law then In existence, the officer shook bis head. The bridge was cutting up' all sorts of capers, swaying back and forth like a swing, until at last the superintendent ran to the fiddler and promised never to demand toil from him. An agreement was entered into, the fiddler pledging to keep secret to his dying day the keynote, so that no revengeful musician ever again could place the structure in Jeopardy without studying out the keynote himself. litUburg Gaxette. |