Pearl's Fiddle

A hundred years ago, young Pearl Clark and family lived in the tenant house on one of the big farm estates that thrived then where the North Syracuse suburbs are now. Papa Clark took care of the fields, barns, roofs and machinery; while Pearl, with her Mother and her sisters cooked, served, and cleaned inside the Estate House from root cellar to music room. In the music room, the lady of the house noticed that Pearl’s hands had a lovely way of tickling the piano as she breezed by with her dust cloth - the dust cloth on the border of which those same hands had embroidered perfect little roses. Because the girl had such obvious hands full of talent, the Lady arranged for music lessons with a prominent Syracuse Violinist. The prominent Violinist was immediately impressed by Pearl’s hands that seemed to know the way without being taught; but of course there was still plenty for her to learn from the old master. He taught her well and at the end of their time together … maybe near the end of HIS time altogether … he gave Pearl the violin we have here today. With a flashlight and some head-twisting you can look into the music hole of the battered old instrument and read the label which states in stately Italian terms that it was made in anno seventeen twenty-six by Stradavarius himself, who has signed it to assure us that it’s so. Well everybody knows, or else should know, that back then, before patents were invented, or just weren’t such a bother, making and selling fake Stradivarius violins was an industry with global reach, and you may even have one in your garage. Her teacher may or may not have been a victim of any illusions about the violin, but in giving it to her, he somehow gave Pearl the impression, or Pearl gave Georgia the impression … or anyway Georgia gave ME the impression that somebody thought this is a real Stradivarius. It’s a FAKE Stradavarius, but Pearl took it with her when she left the farm to live upstairs over a candy store in Syracuse. There in her bare, caramel scented room, she could put the uncased violin on her one of her two chairs, leaning it comfortably against the chair back, and if she sat in the other chair with her sewing and sang, the violin would sing took or if she walked around the room dusting and singing, the violin would hum along. In her time living over the candy store, Pearl continued to do odd jobs in the service trade, but she also took the violin on the street and made some money busking there. I don’t know if Pearl took the fiddle with her that Thanksgiving evening when she went to have dinner on her first date with George Cuningham, the disowned heir of the Cuningham meat-packing family, but the day after her night at George’s apartment, she went back to the room over the candy store to get the fiddle and …or …everything else she owned, I don’t know how much she played the fiddle when the two of them and the five kids frolicked thereafter up on Tug Hill, ; but their three boys pretty well punked the poor thing.. So we’re not about to shove Pearl’s fiddle down a Woodchuck hole; just want to get the haunted old thing pulled together for our mutual comfort. if she doesn’t sing, or if it or he does, but has a voice like Tom Waits on a tough night, that’s Okay. Might put her together myself, with the right advice. Hang her up for a security camera housing, conservation piece, and story telling device. She didn’t come with a bow anyhow. Where can I buy horse hair?