Oh, the excitement of the days that followed that memorable concert!
The pleasure, to Chee, of a secret all her own! The attempts and
failures to _make music_! She was not even familiar with the beginnings
of melody; if she had heard of a scale, she did not known its meaning.
So, for awhile, she tried with her little, trembling fingers, to draw
tones from the old, loosened strings.
After repeated trials and no music, she grew discouraged; even her
untrained ear found something very, very wrong. “It’s the fiddle,” she
concluded, “it’s too old. It won’t work. If I only had a new one now,
brandy-new from the store, I know I could do it. I hear lots of songs
in my head, but I can’t hear them in the fiddle.” However, the idea
that the violin was too old was soon corrected.
One Sunday morning Chee sat in church, thinking there must be baby
birds just outside a window near. The songs the old birds were singing
made her think so. It had been a bright day, but for a moment the sky
was clouded.
“What a terrible big bird Culloo[1] must be to hide the whole sun!
There, he’s gone now. I do hope he will stay away.” Chee shuddered a
little. Aunt Mean frowned at her from the end of the pew. She could not
understand her niece’s fanciful, almost superstitious ideas. It was not
strange that so sensitive a nature as Chee’s, of which the fantastic
beliefs of her mother’s race were a prominent part, could have little
in common with the blunt, doctrinal mind of Aunt Mean.
All the little sounds of the outdoor world had each a separate
individuality for Chee. The tall, stiff poplars in the churchyard,
mingling their metallic rustle with the dainty murmur of the willows,
caused Aunt Mean to think, “I guess it’s going to blow up a storm, the
trees air a-rattling.”
“The poplars are singing with the willows,” thought Chee. “Their voices
sound together just like little Sadie’s and her grandpa’s when they
stand up to sing.” Sadie was a dear, wee tot of a girl, with soft,
flying hair. She sat in the pew ahead of Miss Almeana. Her grandpa was
a tall, stiff-jointed old gentleman. He wore a very long, shiny coat,
and, no matter how warm the day, there was a turkey-red scarf around
his neck. His eyes were small, and glinted like steel. His nose was
thin and straight, and his face always pale. When he left his pew he
immediately put on a high silk hat. Nor did he consider himself in
church until he had reached his old-fashioned seat and closed its door.
Chee did not like the grandpa very well, he made her feel chilly,
she said; but often she longed to change her own stiff, jetty hair
for Sadie’s fuzzy curls. Her thoughts of the birds and the trees and
Sadie’s curls were suddenly checked by Mr. Green, the minister, who was
saying, “It is something like a violin--the older it grows, and the
oftener it is used, the more valuable it becomes.”
Chee instantly straightened herself in her seat. “Did he mean the older
it is the better it plays? How could he? How funny! Other things wear
out, why don’t fiddles? Guess he must be mistaken, ’cause ’less Daddy
Joe’s is too old, what can be the trouble? Wouldn’t the minister think
I was wicked, though, if he knew I loved it like I do? I s’pose ’course
he would, ’cause he’s Aunt Mean’s minister.”
That Aunt Mean could have a minister who did not think just as she,
never occurred to Chee.
“But if I could only make him promise not to tell, he couldn’t--ever,
’cause he’s a minister.”
A few evenings longer she struggled on. The same discordant tones were
the only result. One night the horrible sounds were more than she could
bear. With a shiver, she put away the naughty fiddle. Baffled and
broken-hearted, she crept down to her room. “What shall I do? Oh, what
shall I do?”
Worn out, she threw herself on the floor, and did something very
unusual for Chee--she began to cry. “Nobody can help me. I’m all ’lone.
Nobody’s here ’cept Our Father, I s’pose He’s here, ’cause He’s always
everywhere; but I don’t feel Him very much anywhere. Any way, He
wouldn’t make music for me. He used to for Musmi and his friends, but
perhaps He isn’t so fond of music as He used to be when they lived.”
The thought of heavenly music fascinated her. “I wish I was an angel,
I do. I’d dare ask Him then, any way. He used to do such things for
people in the stories Daddy told me. But Mr. Green only says He can
make us good and such things. I wonder,” she said, slowly, trying to
grasp a new idea, “I wonder if He couldn’t make Mr. Green think the
fiddle isn’t wicked. If He could only do that so I knew Mr. Green
wouldn’t tell Aunt Mean, I could ask him about old fiddles being as
good as new.”
She still lay on the floor. Looking up at the faintly blinking stars,
she murmured, “I don’t believe it would be wrong to ask Our Father to
try, ’cause Our Father and I know the fiddle isn’t wicked, even if Aunt
Mean and the minister don’t. I am going to ask Him, any way, this very
night.”
This resolution seemed to comfort her. Beginning to undress, she tried
to think out a prayer. Poor little Chee! She did not realize that as
she had been lying on the floor, looking up at the stars, her heart
had offered its petition. So she kept on framing a prayer that had
already been heard.
At last, kneeling by her bed, she said over the carefully chosen words,
“Our Father, who art in heaven and everywhere, I love Daddy Joe’s
fiddle very much. Better even than the real china tea-set that Cousin
Gertrude sent me, or my string of beads. But I can’t make music on it,
I’m afraid it’s too old. Mr. Green said it couldn’t be, but I’m afraid
I didn’t understand him right. I want to ask him. Can’t Thou make him
not call me wicked, nor Daddy Joe, nor ever tell Aunt Mean, ’cause
Thou knows how mad she’d be.” Chee paused. This was the prayer she had
planned, but something seemed lacking. After a moment she added, “And
if Thou do, I’ll do something for Thee sometime, only I can’t think of
anything now. Thy kingdom come. And finally save us. Amen.”