“My real name is Opechee. They call me Chee, for short. Aunt Mean says ‘it doesn’t holler so loud of Indian wigwams.’”
“‘Holler of wigwams,’” echoed Gertrude. “You poor, darling child.”
“But I don’t mind so much, for I know what it means,” murmured Chee, as she smiled up into the deep blue sky. “A song-bird—I’d rather be that than anything else.” Then turning with something of Cousin Gertrude’s own impulsiveness, she asked, “Oh, isn’t it lovely? You can’t know how glad I am it’s my name.”
No, the girl could not understand Chee’s strange, almost unreasonable pleasure, but to see the little one so happy could but lighten her own heart.
Many a long talk had they together in that little grove, and during their rambles over the farm. At times Chee would be tempted to unburden her heart of its secret, but, young as she was, she knew Cousin Gertrude had a secret, too; for often when they were talking of the happiest things, the sparkle would die out of the big blue eyes that Chee so lovingly watched.
“Cousin Gertrude has forgotten all about her Nut-Brown Maiden,” she would think. “She doesn’t tell me her secret, and I won’t tell her mine.”
And yet before autumn both secrets came out.
CHAPTER VII.
ONE night Chee was feeling very lonely for Daddy Joe’s fiddle—more lonely than any night since Cousin Gertrude had been at the farm. It seemed years since she had fingered its dear old strings. She had been very much discouraged that last time. Knowing so well the tones she longed to hear, though she had done her best, she was dissatisfied. Even now she could feel the thrill that entered her soul at the concert, three long years ago.
“If I could only play that way how happy I’d be. I wouldn’t care any more about Aunt Mean, nor my face, nor feel the aching so for Daddy Joe, nor anything.”