"
About this period Tony spent hours in the attic
arranging bottles and tumblers into a musical scale.
He also invented an instrument made of small and great,
long and short pins, driven into soft board to different depths,
and when the widow passed his door on the way to bed she
invariable saw this barbaric thing locked up to the boy's breast,
for he often played himself to sleep with it.
At fifteen he had taken to pieces and put together again,
strengthened, soldered, tinkered, mended, and braced
every accordion, guitar, melodeon, dulcimer, and fiddle
in Edgewood, Pleasant River, and the neighboring villages.
There was a little money to be earned in this way, but very little,
as people in general regarded this "tinkering" as a pleasing diversion
in which they could indulge him without danger. As an example
of this attitude, Dr. Berry's wife's melodeon had lost two stops,
the pedals had severed connection with the rest of the works,
it wheezed like an asthmatic, and two black keys were missing.
Anthony worked more than a week on its rehabilitation,
and received in return Mrs.
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