It was as yet too early to light the fire or go for the cows . Ted crept softly to a corner in the garret and took from the wall an old brown fiddle . It had been his father 's . He loved to play on it , and his few rare spare moments were always spent in the garret corner or the hayloft , with his precious fiddle . It was his one link with the old life he had lived in a little cottage far away , with a mother who had loved him and a merry young father who had made wonderful music on the old brown violin . Ted pushed open his garret window and , seating himself on the sill , began to play , with his eyes fixed on the glowing eastern sky . He played very softly , since Mrs. Jackson had a pronounced dislike to being wakened by `` fiddling at all unearthly hours . '' The music he made was beautiful and would have astonished anybody who knew enough to know how wonderful it really was . But there was nobody to hear this little neglected urchin of all work , and he fiddled away happily , the music floating out of the garret window , over the treetops and the dew-wet clover fields , until it mingled with the winds and was lost in the silver skies of the morning . Ted worked doubly hard all that forenoon , since there was a double share of work to do if , as Mrs. Jackson said , he was to be gadding to picnics in the afternoon . But he did it all cheerily and whistled for joy as he worked . After dinner Mrs. Ross came in . Mrs. Ross lived down on the shore road and made a living for herself and her two children by washing and doing days ' work out . She was not a very cheerful person and generally spoke as if on the point of bursting into tears . She looked more doleful than ever today , and lost no time in explaining why . `` I 've just got word that my sister over at White Sands is sick with pendikis '' -- this was the nearest Mrs. Ross could get to appendicitis -- `` and has to go to the hospital . I 've got to go right over and see her , Mrs. Jackson , and I 've run in to ask if Ted can go and stay with Jimmy till I get back . There 's no one else I can get , and Amelia is away . I 'll be back this evening . I do n't like leaving Jimmy alone . ''
`` Ted 's been promised that he could go XXXXX the picnic this afternoon , '' said Mrs. Jackson shortly .
by for from in of on since than to with