CHAPTER IX.
COUSIN GERTRUDE stole up-stairs. Chee had heard good-byes a few moments before, and was hoping, yet fearing, she might find her.
The child sat by the window removing her stockings. Daddy Joe’s fiddle lay on the bed.
“Birdie, how could you? Oh, how could you?”
“I don’t know,” answered Chee, in an excited voice. “I tried not to play out loud, but I got feeling sorrier and sorrier, and wishing He would only let me help. And I forgot to play still, and then I heard a man’s voice, and heard you answer, and I knew everything was all right, and I was so happy I just snatched up Daddy’s fiddle and played out my glad. I didn’t care who heard, for a minute; and, oh, Cousin Gertrude, I felt it—I felt it.”
“Felt what, Childie?”
“Why, the music—way down in my heart, and all over me, just like I did at the concert. I don’t know what to call it, but it’s something, and I’ve tried to feel it for such a long time. And now I have, and it makes me so happy—so happy, you can’t know. It just makes me glad all through, and I feel like crying, too.”
“I am as happy as you, my own little Bird.”
Chee’s arms were around Gertrude’s neck, as she asked, “He did hear, didn’t He?”
“Yes, my comfort, He did hear,” answered Gertrude, tears again in her voice, “but you helped Him.”
“I helped Him?” echoed Chee, shaking her head almost sadly. “No, I wanted to so much, but He didn’t need me.”
After a little, Gertrude said, “Listen, while I tell you how you helped—you’ll see He did need you, after all.
“I love the violin, too—not as you do. I wanted to play because people expected I would. I felt too proud to say that, after years of study, I could never be a great player, and so I kept on working with one teacher after another. Finally,Mr. Farrar, that is my Herman, told me I had better not spend all my time and money for that any longer. He said I had come to a place where I could never go much beyond, and that I wanted to play more from pride than from love—just because my parents had decided, when I was but a child, that music was my first gift. I had found true what he said, but it made me angry that he should dare to tell me. I said some words back. He retorted. We’re both sorry now, but I was so vexed then, I said I would never touch the violin again. My temper offended him, his also rose, and he said he would not speak to me until I took back my words.
“It was the day I had set to come here. He was just going to the woods for his vacation, but he felt so sad he could not go, and went back home instead. Then one night he had a horrible dream that troubled him, so he came to see if I was really safe and well. He says that, down in his heart, he was hoping I was ready to take back my words.
“While he was wishing so much I would come to him—he was out under the trees, you know—he heard music. He thought for a moment I wasplaying, and when he reached me and found out I wasn’t—well, we were both so glad to be together again we forgot which one was to blame. It seemed very silly to have quarrelled at all when we understood and loved each other so. Anyway, now we are only glad to be together again and forget everything. Can’t you see how it might never have come right if you had not played when you did?”
Chee made no answer, her heart was full.
“Of course,” she continued, “if he had stopped to think he would have known it never could have been my playing,—he knows me so well,—but he was anxious and didn’t realize. It seemed to him, he said, the music must be mine, he wanted so much I should take back my words.
“You did help, my Birdie, but you sha’n’t be left to sing alone any longer. Oh!” a new light dawning, “now I know why you love to think Opechee means a song-bird,” and she kissed the silent child with new fondness.
“We are going to ride in the morning, my Herman and I, and when we return perhaps we will have something to tell you. But oh, my preciouscousin, you can never, never know all you have done for us.”
Chee only answered with a grave little shake of her head, “It wasn’t me, ’twas only Our Father, and”—she added tenderly—“Daddy Joe’s fiddle.”