CHAPTER XI.
AFTER Mr. Farrar had bade them good night and stolen out the front doorway, Gertrude revealed to Chee their plan.
“We are going to have a concert,” she announced. “Mr. Green says you haven’t had one here in town since last Christmas—and we’re going to get people so interested the whole place will turn out. Herman knows how, for he has gotten up several in the city.”
“Get up a concert, why, how can he?” asked Chee, incredulously.
“He will have a chorus. Every child in the village must be in that. And he is going to send for some of his friends,—a man to play the harp, and a lady to sing, and some others. And Herman, you know, plays on the piano,—that’s his profession.”
“Oh!” said Chee, in a tone of new understanding.
“But wait, dear, the best part is coming.Youare the best part of all.”
“Me?”
“Yes, Birdie, you. That’s what the whole thing is for. It’s Mr. Green’s idea as much as Herman’s. It’s to be kept a surprise—I mean you are—your name won’t appear on the programme at all.”
“My name on the programme! Cousin Gertrude, what do you mean?” Poor Chee was thoroughly alarmed now.
“Mean? You dear little monkey, you. Why nothing at all but that you and your violin are going to bring down the house.”
“Do you mean my secret has got to come out?”
“Of course. Isn’t it already out? More’s the pity it has been kept so long.”
“But Aunt Mean! Why, Cousin Gertrude, what are you thinking of? You know how she hates it, and calls it wicked.” Chee was almost in tears.
“Dear Birdie, can’t you see that’s what the whole thing is for—to cure Aunt Mean of hernonsense? You know how proud she is—we think if we can only get her to the hall, that, after she has heard how beautifully you play and how fine people think it is, she will give right in.”
“I’m ’fraid she mightn’t—’sides, Cousin Gertrude, how could I ever play at the hall? I never, never could do that.”
“Chee,” Gertrude’s face was earnest with pleading, “you love your little violin, don’t you?”
“You know I love Daddy Joe’s fiddle best of everything in this world.”
“Well, if you knew that all you ever might learn about it depended upon whether you played at the hall or not, couldn’t you do it?”
“Do you mean I could learn to make music like the man at the concert long ago?” Chee spoke tremulously, and tears filled her eyes as they looked up, so full of yearning entreaty.
“Yes, I think you could. If our concert was a success, so Aunt Mean would let you go, we would take you to the city with us, where you could study music to your heart’s content.”
“Go to the city and learn how to play all I want to!” Chee echoed.
“Can’t you get courage to play at the concert, now?” The child’s lips compressed for a moment, then she answered in a whisper, “I don’t believe she’d ever let me go, but I’ll try.”
“That’s a dear. Don’t you worry about Aunt Mean. Just wait until my Nut-Brown Maiden thrills the house.”
Chee shook her head dubiously. “Aunt Mean never lets anything make her feel as though she must fly straight to heaven. She can’t,” said the little girl, translating Gertrude’s words into a language of her own.