The Minstrel's Melody (2 page)

For years Orphelia had read and saved as many newspaper clippings about Madame Meritta as she could find. Madame Meritta was a star! She was born of free parents in 1864 in St. Louis and could play the piano at the age of four. By age seven she was known as “Little Miss Meritta, child prodigy.” By the age of twelve—same age as Orphelia—she had run away from home and joined a minstrel show.

Once she was on the same program as John William “Blind” Boone, the famous Missouri piano player. Several times she performed with the renowned opera singers, the Hyers Sisters. Madame Meritta formed her own minstrel troupe, one of the very few Negro women to do so, and now she traveled around the world. She had her own customized coaches and everything. Her life sounded so exciting!

To see the great Madame Meritta in person would be a miracle in itself. To perform in her talent show was something Orphelia had only dreamed about and never thought possible. Until now.

This would be her first big break. One of these days she'd be so good that Momma would
have
to like all the music she played. She'd be so famous that her posters would be all over the Stone Shed. The
Hannibal Evening Courier
and the
Lewis County Journal
and even the St. Louis papers would have write-ups about her. One of these days, no matter what Momma said, Orphelia would be a minstrel star, too, just like Madame Meritta.

As Orphelia, Pearl, and Cap slowly began their long walk across the cow pasture for home, Mr. McCutcheon and his ice wagon, drawn by his cross-eyed mare Canola, rumbled past the Stone Shed. World's Fair posters were nailed to both sides of the wagon. Orphelia waved at him. If he had stopped at a customer's house, she and Pearl and Cap would have scrambled up to his wagon and gotten fresh, cool chunks of ice. Singing made her thirsty.

“Well, I know neither Poppa nor Momma's gonna ever let me or you sing sassy songs in public,” Pearl was saying. “You know Momma says—”

“I know, I know! I have to hear it more than you do! ‘Perform only proper music in public, sassy music and dancing are sinful, always sit with your ankles crossed, and always conduct yourselves as proper young Negro ladies, according to the standards of the day.' I am too tired of hearing that. Why Momma's so much against every kind of song I want to play except church music is what I can't understand. She's so old-fashioned. Why do she and Reverend Rutherford say dancing is sinful and will make your soul burn in the hereafter down below, but then won't tell you why?”

“Uh-oh, Orphelia's gone off again,” Cap said. “Pearl, hold this chile down!”

Orphelia spread her arms wide and whirled around. “Shoot, this is 1904! People in Hannibal have motorcars and electric lights inside their houses. Miz Rutherford told us that two men flew in the air last year! I want to see the world. I wanna play ragtime, sing show tunes, do the cakewalk—c'mon, you all, let's high step!”

Breaking into a lively chorus of “Oh, Dem Golden Slippers,” Orphelia grabbed Cap by the left arm and swung him around. Pearl grabbed his right arm. They strutted and high stepped about in the pasture like she'd seen folks do at the Emancipation Celebration.

Suddenly Pearl stopped. “I feel flushed,” she panted. “Did Mr. McCutcheon see us dancing? Am I feeling the hot flames of the hereafter down below already?”

Orphelia laughed, but she stopped dancing, too, feeling guilty. How could something so enjoyable as music and dancing be a sin? Momma didn't want to talk about any kind of music unless it was church music. She didn't even want to talk about her own brother, Uncle Winston, who had played the cornet before he died. His picture hung in the hallway at home. He wore a band uniform and carried his cornet. A tiny silver pin shaped like a musical note sparkled on his lapel.

Momma would only say that Uncle Winston died when he was a young man, that his cornet playing was “sufficient,” and that Orphelia should let his soul rest in peace. Poppa was as closemouthed as a clam about him, too. Orphelia couldn't even pry anything out of Miz Rutherford. Orphelia felt a connection with him, as he seemed to have been the only other instrumentalist in the family.

Just then Pearl nudged her. “There must be something to what Reverend said. Dancing's put Cap on the road to sin already Look!” Cap had trotted along the dirt path to the porch of the old Stone Shed and was removing boards that were loosely nailed across the door.

“Get away from there!” Orphelia yelled. “Sheriff Lasswell owns all this, and I personally heard him say he'd arrest anybody who fools around in this building. Can't you read that ‘Keep Out' sign? Ain't nothing in there for you. Cap, you hear me?”

Without answering, Cap pushed his way into the Shed. “Well, I declare,” said Pearl. “Where he comes from, trespassing must not be against the law. I suppose he figures he can do anything, being a man, or near big as one.”

Cap reappeared in the door with a drum in his hands. “Told you I had a drum. I know what I'm talking about. Come see what all's in here. Pearl, come look.”

“Don't you do it,” Orphelia said.

But Pearl hotfooted along the path to the porch. She peeked in the door. “Where'd you steal this drum? Cap, I'm not getting in trouble over your—oh, my goodness gracious! Looka-here! Orphelia, you got to come see!” Then she disappeared through the door, too.

“Momma's gonna skin you and fry you up for going in there,” Orphelia warned. She folded and unfolded her arms, dying to go in, too. If this place used to be a jail, why would a drum be in there?

“Pearl, you come out here right now!” She took a step forward on the path and stopped, then took a few steps more. She swatted at a grasshopper that jumped from a stand of Queen Anne's lace onto her blouse. “Better come out before you give me heart palpitations!”

Cautiously she stepped onto the creaky porch and peeked in. Cap and Pearl stood in the middle of a large, dusty, spiderweb-strewn room. Sunlight through the cracks in the roof and walls gave her just enough light to see large piles of newspapers and rags on the floor, wooden straight-back chairs, a divan, a fireplace, a magnificent iron chandelier, and massive wood tables with legs the size of pillars. The air smelled like wet, decaying tree bark and rotted leaves.

Pearl and Cap pointed to a corner of the room where against the wall sat—an upright piano! The only other pianos Orphelia knew to be in the Calico Creek community were in their church and school. Eyes riveted to the instrument, Orphelia dashed into the room. She lifted the dusty piano lid and touched a few keys. Tinny sounds came out. Already she loved it.

“Shoosh, thing needs tuning bad,” she said. “But I sure wish I could take it home! It needs somebody like me to take care of it.”

Cap proudly set the drum back up on top of the piano. “Ain't this the funniest looking ‘jail' you ever saw?”

“Looks more like it was a dance hall or a saloon, or a music room.” Orphelia ran her fingers over the keys again. “But not a jail! Why would the sheriff and everybody tell us such things?”

“To keep nosy little children like you out of here,” said Cap.

“Oh yeah? Well, what does that make
you?
And how'd you know about that drum being in here anyway?” Orphelia asked. She played a few more notes, wondering if Reverend Rutherford could tune pianos.

“'Cause I bet he's been in here before,” Pearl said. “Tore those boards off like they were matchsticks, just like that, strong as you are.” She plucked his shirt sleeve flirtatiously.

Cap puffed out his chest and hooked his thumbs into his belt. “When you travel around like me, you got to know how to do. Otherwise you be sleeping in the mud with the pigs and cows. We fellas on the road spot out places like this and tell each other. After I got kicked off—hopped off the train, I remembered a fella telling me about an old building out in the country. He described it perfectly, so I came right to it. A rug makes a good blanket when you ain't got nothing else, and a floor beats sleeping on the ground anytime.”

Orphelia wandered around the room, still puzzling over their discovery. Would Sheriff Lasswell be sinful enough to have a saloon? He surely didn't seem so musically inclined as to have a formal music room. She picked up some newspapers from a pile on the floor. Most were dusty, moldy, and crumbling. Sneezing, she went through the pile quickly She returned to the piano and picked up a torn, faded handbill of two young men next to a young woman sitting at a piano.

She showed the handbill to Pearl, who was examining a swatch of brocaded material on the floor. “Wonder who they were,” Orphelia said.

Pearl glanced at the handbill, then picked up and fondled the cloth. “Wouldn't this make a grand spread on my bed? If I slip this in our room, would you keep your mouth shut?”

Orphelia laughed. “Like Momma wouldn't notice a strange, moldy, yellow, red, and green piece of cloth on your bed and not have a hissy fit. If I can't take the piano, you can't take that cloth.”

“I'll wait for a good time, like when she's busy, and tell Momma I found this old rag by the road and could I wash it and make it nice. She won't be listening that close, anyway. I want that piece of paper with those people, too. I can hang it on the wall. I'll say, ‘Why, Momma, where'd this handbill come from? It must have been stuck to this cloth!'” Winking at Orphelia, Pearl took the handbill. She folded the cloth and slid the handbill between the layers.

“Who would have thought the Stone Shed held anything but dust?” Orphelia turned to Cap. “According to Miz Rutherford, this house was once owned by a white family named Stone. That's why they call it the Stone Shed, you know, even though it's made out of wood. Anyway, Miz Rutherford said it was where runaway slaves hid out, called an Underground Railroad or something. Being so close to Illinois, they would cross the Mississippi and go over to Quincy and be free. Or else they went on to towns in Iowa like Salem, Denmark, or Burlington and were free there.”

“You talkin' like we're in school,” Cap said. “What I figure is that the sheriff ended up with it and used to have dances and stuff out here. The grown folks knew what it really was, but they called it a jail and you all believed it. That's why you all been so scared to come inside. You can't be that green to believe everything grown folks say, can you?”

“Yes,” Pearl broke in before Orphelia could speak. “We better get out of here before someone else comes around. Orphelia, I just thought of something. Today's the day we do Sheriff Lasswell's clothes.”

Momma was the best laundress in town, and she washed and ironed the clothes of the most prosperous white families around. Pearl and Orphelia usually helped. “That must be a sign that it's all right for me to take this piece of cloth. I'm just doing more of his clothes!” Pearl patted her skirt. It bulged out more than usual.

“Cap, you're a witness that I didn't have anything to do with Pearl stealing that cloth. So, Pearl, don't put me into your falsifying.” Orphelia returned to the piano. She wished she could put
it
under her skirt.

She started to sit down at the piano when she noticed paper sticking out from under the piano-bench lid. Lifting up the lid, she found more sheet music and a small composition book. Reading sheet music was how she learned many songs, apart from those she heard played at functions or that Miz Rutherford gave her in music books. Orphelia broke into a smile as she thumbed through the pages of the composition book. Written on the cover were the words “Songbook” and “Private” in a fine hand. The book contained several pages of musical compositions. One song was entitled “Lewis County Rag.” She'd never heard that one before. Ignoring the privacy notice, Orphelia squinted at the notes and began to play. It was the same kind of music that man Scott Joplin down in Sedalia was getting famous for creating. She played the entire song.

“Orphelia! Get off that piano and come on!” Pearl called from the door. “Else I'm leaving you in here by yourself.”

Orphelia stuffed the little book into her bodice. She couldn't wait to get to school and play the song when Miz Rutherford wasn't around. Whose book was this, and why had it been left behind? Whose instruments were these? And what had this room and this building really been used for after the Stone family left?

C
HAPTER
2

P
UNISHED

Cap left them at the crossroads. When Orphelia and Pearl reached their yard, they saw Momma in the back taking down Sheriff Lasswell's red flannel long underwear from the line. They slipped into the house. While Pearl paused in the kitchen, Orphelia eased into the bedroom she and Pearl shared. She removed the songbook from her bodice and hid it under the cover of her bed to examine later.

As she changed from her school dress into a plain skirt and waist, Pearl came in smiling and chewing on a piece of johnnycake. “I just put that cloth in a laundry basket. Momma'll never know the difference.” Pearl changed her clothes, too, and then they left the room.