“The poplars are singing with the willows,” thought Chee. “Their voices sound together just like little Sadie’s and her grandpa’s when they stand up to sing.” Sadie was a dear, wee tot of a girl, with soft, flying hair. She sat in the pew ahead of Miss Almeana. Her grandpa was a tall, stiff-jointed old gentleman. He wore a very long, shiny coat, and, no matter how warm the day, there was a turkey-red scarf around his neck. His eyes were small, and glinted like steel. His nose was thin and straight, and his face always pale. When he left his pew he immediately put on a high silk hat. Nor did he consider himself in church until he had reached his old-fashioned seat and closed its door.
Chee did not like the grandpa very well, he made her feel chilly, she said; but often she longed to change her own stiff, jetty hair for Sadie’s fuzzy curls. Her thoughts of the birds and the trees and Sadie’s curls were suddenly checked by Mr. Green, the minister, who was saying, “It is something like a violin—the older it grows, and the oftener it is used, the more valuable it becomes.”
Chee instantly straightened herself in her seat. “Did he mean the older it is the better it plays? How could he? How funny! Other things wear out, why don’t fiddles? Guess he must be mistaken, ’cause ’less Daddy Joe’s is too old, what can be the trouble? Wouldn’t the minister think I was wicked, though, if he knew I loved it like I do? I s’pose ’course he would, ’cause he’s Aunt Mean’s minister.”
That Aunt Mean could have a minister who did not think just as she, never occurred to Chee.
“But if I could only make him promise not to tell, he couldn’t—ever, ’cause he’s a minister.”
A few evenings longer she struggled on. The same discordant tones were the only result. One night the horrible sounds were more than she could bear. With a shiver, she put away the naughty fiddle. Baffled and broken-hearted, she crept down to her room. “What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?”
Worn out, she threw herself on the floor, and did something very unusual for Chee—she began to cry. “Nobody can help me. I’m all ’lone. Nobody’s here ’cept Our Father, I s’pose He’s here, ’cause He’s always everywhere; but I don’t feel Him very much anywhere. Any way, He wouldn’t make music for me. He used to for Musmi and his friends, but perhaps He isn’t so fond of music as He used to be when they lived.”
The thought of heavenly music fascinated her. “I wish I was an angel, I do. I’d dare ask Him then, any way. He used to do such things for people in the stories Daddy told me. But Mr. Green only says He can make us good and such things. I wonder,” she said, slowly, trying to grasp a new idea, “I wonder if He couldn’t make Mr. Green think the fiddle isn’t wicked. If He could only do that so I knew Mr. Green wouldn’t tell Aunt Mean, I could ask him about old fiddles being as good as new.”
She still lay on the floor. Looking up at the faintly blinking stars, she murmured, “I don’t believe it would be wrong to ask Our Father to try, ’cause Our Father and I know the fiddle isn’t wicked, even if Aunt Mean and the minister don’t. I am going to ask Him, any way, this very night.”
This resolution seemed to comfort her. Beginning to undress, she tried to think out a prayer. Poor little Chee! She did not realize that as she had been lying on the floor, looking up at the stars, her heart had offered its petition. So she kept on framing a prayer that had already been heard.