It was Sunday. The morning sermon was ended, and the choir-leader had
played the “walkout,” as Chee termed the postlude.
The choir-leader was a very interesting person. He not only led the
singing and played the organ at church, but could whistle. And such
whistling! Not the every-day wood-pile sort, but the kind that made
every boy in town his friend.
He was tall, had a sallow, haggard face and hollow eyes. His spare
locks almost touched his shoulders, and appeared to be faded. One knew
at a second glance, however, they had never been brighter.
This eccentric-looking gentleman had hardly slipped from off the long
bench before the organ, ere the minister had found Aunt Mean and was
saying, “Will you kindly do Mrs. Green and myself a favor?”
“You know very well, Elder, any living thing on our farm is at your
disposal. If I’ve said it once, I have said it a hundred times!”
“Well, it is something from your farm, to be sure. We want your little
niece for a day--say Wednesday, if it is pleasant.”
“Chee?” she exclaimed, with surprise. “For mercy’s sake, what do you
want o’ her?”
“You know how fond of children we are--both of us. We want her to enjoy
her. Surely, you can spare the child for a single day.”
“It ain’t the sparin’ on her.” But catching sight of Chee’s pleading
eyes, she added, “I don’t want no niece o’ mine botherin’ round and
makin’ Mrs. Green a heap o’ work.”
“No, indeed, Chee would be a real help. You know, Miss Whittaker, a
home without a child is often a lonely place.”
“Some folks ain’t had much chance to find out, lately,” and Aunt Mean
went off with her favorite “Humph.”
For awhile after that eventful visit, matters went more smoothly for
Chee.
She was taught how to tighten the strings of her violin until they
formed chords, and how to play scales upon them. Her eyes opened wide
with astonishment.
“To think the dear old fiddle hasn’t been to blame, after all!” she
joyfully cried. “Just me!”
It was a great revelation to her to find the strings had always to be
brought up to a certain pitch. “Why, no wonder Daddy Joe’s couldn’t
play if they have to be pulled up every time,” she exclaimed, then
added, plaintively, “It’s years and years since Daddy’s pulled up his.”
“Of course it’s no wonder,” laughed her teacher, fingering the
companion of his boyhood days. “Even the strings on this are yellow
from lying in a paper so long. What must your father’s be like?
It’s a great marvel that they have not snapped before this. No, no,
little one, don’t condemn the instrument, but keep right on trying to
understand it.”
Chee, with a light heart, bade the minister and his wife good-by. She
had begun to learn how to make music. And were not a whole package of
violin-strings in her pocket?
After this it became more natural for the pastor to say Sundays, “May
we have Chee to-morrow, Miss Whittaker?” Or, “Mrs. Green wishes me to
engage your little niece for Thursday,” and Aunt Mean seldom refused.
Chee never quite understood why permission was so readily given.
Secretly she puzzled over it, but was far too grateful to ask questions.
The truth of the matter is this--it flattered Aunt Mean to have
the minister intimate with her little relative. Moreover, she had
an indescribable notion that by allowing her niece to frequent the
parsonage, she might in some way counterbalance the child’s heathendom.
“It’s no use for you to tell me different, Reuben,” she would argue.
“Her mother was a heathen, or Injun” (the two were synonymous in Aunt
Mean’s mind), “and do what we can, the girl will allers be half a
savage.”
So Chee--in spite of her aunt’s arguing, decidedly a whole person--was
allowed to spend one or two days of every week with her friends.
From chords and scales, she learned to pick out simple tunes, those she
heard at church being her chief source of selection. After awhile she
learned to play little melodies of her own composing. “Wind and bird
songs,” she called them.
The clergyman gave her all the rules for violin-playing he knew, and
his wife taught her to read music.
They were happy times for Chee,--Mrs. Green at the piano, playing old,
familiar hymns, Chee picking out the notes on the minister’s violin.
One day she said, “Some way, Mr. Green, I can’t love your fiddle
like I do Daddy’s.” Then fearing she might hurt her good friend’s
feelings, she hastened to add, “It’s very much shinier, and of course
it’s a fiddle.” Mrs. Green used to wonder if “fiddle” wasn’t the most
beautiful word in all the world to Chee.
Three years passed without much change except Chee’s gradual
improvement and increasing delight in her music.
In Aunt Mean’s best parlor, a hymn-book lay in prim stateliness beside
the family Bible. It was a coveted treasure to Chee. But the principle
of strict honesty was a part of her very soul, in spite of her
“heathen” mother, and the Bible was never left alone to gather dust.
Much to her displeasure, she was “broke in.” But in time she took her
household duties as a matter of course, and things went on much in the
same old way.