Azalea: The Story of a Little Girl in the Blue Ridge Mountains

by Elia Wilkinson Peattie

Wagons by the twenties stood about, their horses unhitched and tied beneath the trees. Men, women and children were gathered in groups, talking and laughing. The heavy barred doors of the old church were swung wide, and the ivy and crimson creeper peeped in at its open windows. The boys helped pa unhitch and were ready when the deep-toned bell sounded, to go with the others into the church.

The bare yet homely interior was stained a deep reddish brown by time, and the wide-swung casements let in the sky of the fair summer day. Elder Miles stood in the pulpit for a few minutes, to ask a blessing on the gathering, and then a hook-nosed, slender, restless old man with a voice like a silver trumpet got up and called for volunteers for the first singing. He said he thought it would be better to have the middle-aged folks at the first table, so to speak, and that the young folks could wait for second helping.

With that, men and women arose in various parts of the room and went forward. Their weather-colored, work-worn faces were lighted with smiles as they went down the aisle, nodding to acquaintances shyly, and taking their places in the seats which had been arranged just below the pulpit. There seemed to be no need to inquire which was soprano, alto, tenor or bass. They had met together for years, and knew each other’s voices well. There were only two who hesitated as if not quite sure where to go, and Azalea, seeing them, was surprised to see that it was Mrs. Carson and a tall handsome man, with a touch of gray in his hair, whom she took at once to be Carin’s father. The hook-nosed man came forward to inquire politely as to their voices, and after shaking hands with them, placed them among the sopranos and the tenors.

Then a fresh-faced young woman seated herself at the organ, and in a moment the chorus of voices broke on Azalea’s ear. It was not the way she had expected it to be—that music. It was sad, although full of worship and trust. The voices wavered curiously, and seemed to flutter on the notes something as a flag flutters in the wind. Perhaps the alto and the bass were a little too strong for the more musical parts; but at any rate, at first, the little girl was disappointed. Then, someway, she began to like it. She felt the tears come stinging to her eyes, though she could not have told why, and a lump gathered in her throat. She forgot the men and women and the haggard old meeting house, forgot the sound of the pines without and the humming of the bees; and she seemed for a moment—a wonderful moment—to be in mid-air like a bird, and to hear a strange, sad, holy song coming up to her from men and women who toiled, and hoped, and loved, and suffered, down on the earth.

Some one offered her a hymn book, and the strange moment passed, and she was able to follow the hymns. They had noble words to them, and her heart seemed to grow bigger as she read them. Such words suited her—fed something in her that was hungry and cried for food. She began to understand why it was that Pa and Ma McBirney were so good. They had been taught these words from the time that they were children. They had grown up with these beautiful thoughts in their hearts.

After a time the young people were called for, and the older ones took their seats. The young wives went and their brown-faced husbands, and the fresh-faced, wistful girls, and the boys with their bright eyes. Azalea loved to look at them, they seemed so strong and contented. She liked the bright frocks of the girls, and the way their hair was braided, and though she tried to think of other things, she fell to picturing a green lawn frock she would have some day when she made money for herself, and the figured sash—green leaves on a white ground—she would wear with it.

Just then, the man who was sitting next Azalea arose and went over by the window, and a moment later some one slipped down into the place he had left and gave Azalea’s hand a squeeze. Azalea turned her head as quick as a frightened bird, and there sat Carin Carson, smiling at her as if they were old friends.

“I was so glad when I saw you here,” she whispered. “Isn’t it a pity they don’t ask the children to sing? I just love to sing, don’t you?”

Azalea shook her head. She had sung many a time for the people who came to the show, but she had hated the silly songs she was made to sing, and as she thought of them now she blushed.

“I don’t believe I really can sing,” she whispered back. “I could once, but my voice is spoiled. I sang too loud, and now it’s all rough and horrid.”