The Minstrel's Melody

by Eleanora E. Tate

  “You must have been in here straightening up,” a man with a foreign accent said. “You made it so neat that I can’t find my towels. What a sweet lady! But I prefer them right behind the door. So now you have put them where?”

  “I put them nowhere, Othello. Maybe you left them on a clothesline at the last stop.” It was Madame Meritta!

  Orphelia tried to flatten herself under the bags. Footsteps tapped on the wood floor. “Whew! Smells like rotten fish in here, Othello. Did you leave the lid off the barrel last night?”

  She could feel someone—the man?—right above her. She held her breath. “Madame, salted fish smells like that all the time. Have you been moving my barrels, too? Well, here are my towels and my—Mon Dieu!” The man jerked Orphelia to her feet, shouting in a language Orphelia didn’t know. It sounded like French.

  With bags still draped around her head, Orphelia flailed blindly about. “Let me go!” She snatched off the sacks and came face-to-face with a short, plump, red-faced man with long black hair and a bristly mustache.

  “Oh my goodness, girl, what are you doing here?” said Madame Meritta. “Stop, Othello, it’s all right,” she said. “Well, no, it’s not all right, but let her go anyway What else is going to happen? First the coach breaks down, this tooth is killing me, and now we’ve got a stowaway!”

  Othello released Orphelia. She straightened and smoothed down her dress, her heart pounding so fast she thought it would leap up her throat and out of her mouth. “I’m Orphelia Bruce, from Calico Creek, remember? From last night!”

  Nodding and frowning, Madame Meritta placed her palm against her swollen right cheek. “Oh yes, I remember you, but why—how did you get inside my food wagon? Do your folks know where you are? Of course they don’t. You’ve run away! But you can’t stay with us.”

  “Well, I won’t go back! You said you wanted me to play with you.”

  “But that didn’t mean come with me now, like this! All right, sit down there, be quiet, and listen to me.” Madame Meritta motioned for her to sit on the overturned washtub. “I can’t take a girl your age with me. No. Period. And especially not without your people’s permission! Don’t you understand? Yes, you have talent, but—why, the authorities could say I kidnapped you!”

  “But you joined a traveling show when you were twelve,” Orphelia said, “and you performed with famous musicians and organized your own—”

  “Oh, that’s just show-business talk, Orphelia. You can’t believe everything you read.” Madame Meritta closed her eyes for a moment. “Listen, when freedom came, my mother died. I was a baby having to live from day to day with whoever took me in. I had no choice. I was on the road at that age only because the family that I was living with at the time was on the road, too, but it wasn’t show business. A child shouldn’t have to be made to work the way I … Honey, you have a family! You must go back home!”

  “No, and if you send me back, I’ll just run off again! Momma said I can’t even be a church pianist anymore! I won’t be able to play piano at all.” Orphelia’s heart tumbled as fast as her words rushed out. She grabbed hold of Madame Meritta’s skirt.

  Othello stood in front of the door with his arms folded, staring at Orphelia like she’d fallen out of the sky. He reminded her of a hairy sausage. “Madame, you must get ready for this evening,” he said. “We still must pick up the coach and the others, remember? And your tooth?”

  Madame Meritta looked from Orphelia to Othello and back. “How much more complicated can my life get? Orphelia, I can tell that you love music, and that’s wonderful. I’m sure your mother will change her mind once you’re back home. At any rate, I’m going to have to put you on the train immediately.”

  “Which means that we’d have to go back to Hannibal, and that’s miles away and the last train left there hours ago,” Othello said.

  “Well then, I’ll send her back by horse tonight.”

  “But not by me!” said Othello.

  “Please, please, please let me stay at least tonight,” Orphelia moaned in the folds of Madame Meritta’s skirt. Then she peered up at the woman. “I can clean, I can wash and iron clothes, I can help you get dressed, I can cook—”

  “I, and only I, dress the Madame Meritta,” Othello said firmly. “And I’m also the cook.”

  Madame Meritta smiled briefly at Othello. “Othello, you sound so stuffy,” she told him. “And you, young lady, are quite an actress.” She pulled her skirt out of Orphelia’s hands. “You are definitely leaving here first thing in the morning. Right now I want you to quit snotting and sit up. Fold these towels, put them back where Othello tells you, and clean up this place. You think it’s fun and easy being in a traveling show, but I assure you that it’s a lot harder than you can imagine.”

  “And when I’m done, can I go with you to your show tonight?” Orphelia asked.

  “Absolutely not!” Madame Meritta climbed out of the storage coach. “You stay right in this coach until we come back. This tent show is not for children. You’ll be safe here. Reuben will keep an eye on you.”

  “Who’s Reuben?” Orphelia asked. Othello pointed. Orphelia looked out the door and saw the creepy, knife-waving, apple-eating, one-eyed man. She let out a groan. Orphelia crumpled up her face at Madame Meritta.

  “Reuben, watch her till we get back,” Othello shouted, pointing to Orphelia. “Don’t let her leave this wagon.”

  Reuben nodded. He grabbed his overturned bucket chair, plunked it on the ground just outside the door, and sat down. Then he took out a knife—this one was smaller than his other, at least—and began whittling on a piece of wood. He hummed a tuneless song as he carved.

  “I’ll get you a slop jar for your outhouse breaks. And you can open the door and get fresh air in,” said Madame Meritta to Orphelia.

  “But, Miz Madame, that man scares me,” Orphelia whispered. “Don’t make me stay here with him alone!”

  Madame Meritta said, “Humph. All the more reason for you to stay inside this wagon, don’t you think? You should have thought about scary men with knives before you ran away from your mother. Reuben’s a little feebleminded, but he won’t hurt you.”

  “One of the only people around here we can depend on, as a matter of fact,” Othello added. “He does whatever task he’s given and never complains.”

  Madame Meritta pointed a finger at Orphelia. “You’d do best not to concern yourself so much with Reuben as with your own problems. Now come get the broom and mop, and get to work.”

  Orphelia peeped at Reuben. No matter what Madame Meritta said, it still seemed like his one good eye glittered back at her evilly. She shivered and hurried past.

  With Othello’s help, Orphelia straightened, dusted, swept, and mopped the inside of the storage wagon. Othello handed her a horse blanket and a few flour sacks. She would sleep in the same corner where she’d been hiding, but only for tonight, he reminded her. He showed her how to latch the door closed from the inside.

  “So you wish to be a star like Madame Meritta?” Othello said, stacking his sacks back into neat piles by the door.

  Orphelia nodded. “I have a scrapbook of articles about her. There’s nobody like her in the whole world, except maybe the Hyers Sisters.” She paused from folding the blanket. “Reuben said we were in Little Paradise. Where do we go after here?”

  “To Pitchfork Creek for some gala entertaining there. That’s our last stop before St. Louis. But as soon as we reach a train stop anywhere, we’re putting you on the train.”

  To change the subject from trains and leaving, Orphelia quickly asked, “What did she mean about show-business talk? And I meant to ask her where her maids and butlers and personal secretary were.”

  “Maids and butlers? Now that’s some real exaggeration.” He propped one plump boot up on the metal tub as he rearranged the apple sacks. “You might read anything in a newspaper or on a playbill about us. It’s meant to suck the audience in. Maids and butlers? You obviously know nothing about real minstrel shows
or traveling troupes. Now, the old minstrel shows where everyone wore blackface were the shows that made money, generally because the owner was white. He got the backing he needed, see? Madame Meritta is an owner, but she’s colored and a woman, and she refuses to black up her face to satisfy somebody else’s idea of what a Negro is supposed to look like. Many whites still like that kind of show, and they won’t pay to see our show as we are. Or sometimes the man selling tickets disappears with the money box, so we lose our cut of the proceeds. Or someone in our show leaves in a pout, and there we are, about to open with no pianist or banjo player, or no Grand Master! So we stay poor.”

  Orphelia bit her lip as she listened, not sure how to phrase what she was thinking. “Couldn’t you pretend to be the owner? Couldn’t she make some money then?”

  Othello tapped his forehead. “You see my white skin, you think, ah, he could pretend to be the owner and then things would be all right. Ma chère—that’s French for ‘my dear,’ in case you did not know—I am a Creole of color, from New Orleans. My grandmother was French, and I could pass for white, but that’s not how I choose to live my life. Plus, Madame Meritta is my wife.”

  “Oh!” So Madame Meritta and Othello were married. Well, no wonder he was so concerned about her. Orphelia’s cheeks burned. He had looked white to her. But she was still confused. “If it’s so hard, then why does she keep doing it?”

  “Because she has so much music in her heart that she must share it with the world or her heart will explode. She takes her music to the people wherever they may be, no matter what color they are. She has passion, and she performs with passion.”

  “That’s how I feel about music, too. I don’t really care about getting money, either,” Orphelia said.

  “But she does too many shows for pennies, and so many of her audiences are poor people,” Othello said. “We have so many bills. We’ll never get rich this way.”

  Orphelia sat down, stunned by Othello’s revelations. Maybe Othello meant Madame Meritta didn’t make thousands of dollars—just hundreds. Maybe she didn’t live in a mansion—instead, maybe a comfortable eight-to ten-room house with only one maid.

  Othello held up his hands. “It is getting late. I must prepare Madame for her performance, as well as myself. After we leave, you stay inside this wagon where it’s safe. Strange people travel through the countryside at night, and some men are ruffians and not as nice as Reuben.”

  Orphelia wanted to ask him more about her strange, one-eyed bodyguard, but Othello was already out the door. Just then Reuben stood up and stretched. He eased around the storage wagon, plopped down in the weeds, and went back to his whittling. Orphelia wondered what he was carving with those big, bony hands of his. They looked too clumsy to carve anything nice. Well, whatever it was, he seemed to be concentrating very hard on it. She closed and latched the door and returned to her spot inside.

  To let Othello tell it, Madame Meritta was almost as poor as everybody in Calico Creek! That certainly wasn’t how Orphelia imagined a famous singer’s life on the road. And if it wasn’t true that Madame Meritta lived in luxury, then had she never performed with famous musicians when she was a child? Had she not traveled around the world? Who had lied—the newspapers and playbills, or Madame Meritta? Had she lied about Orphelia’s “amazing talent,” too?

  Worse yet, had running away been a mistake?

  Her heart seemed to flip-flop. She pressed her hands against her chest and breathed deeply to calm herself. Maybe disappointment was making her heart carry on so.

  After a short while, someone knocked at the door. When Orphelia opened it, she was surprised to find Madame Meritta standing there. She wore a golden gown that sparkled with blue glitter, and a matching blue turban. Part of it hung down over her face to hide her swollen cheek. “We’re on our way, but I just wanted to make sure you were all right,” she said. “After the show I’m getting this tooth pulled. I can’t stand the pain anymore.”

  “I hope you feel better. And, Miz Madame, I just want to play my music and sing, just like you. I don’t care if I never make any money. You’ll see!”

  But after Madame Meritta left, Orphelia couldn’t help thinking again about how difficult Madame Meritta’s life must be if she wasn’t making much money. How did she pay for her gowns, for the horses’ care, for the musicians’ food?

  And soon Orphelia was going to be put on the train for home, where Momma and everyone would laugh at her, criticize and humiliate her, where her piano playing was doomed. Momma would make her cut down half the willow tree for a switch and beat her every day. Now what was she going to do?

  Orphelia’s fingers started twitching again. This time, though, instead of playing her imaginary piano, she just sang. She sang “Didn’t the Lord Deliver Daniel?” and “Amazing Grace” and “Oh, How I Love Jesus.” Feeling better, she stretched and went to the water bucket that Othello had left by the door for her. She took a deep drink. With the tin cup still to her mouth, she unlatched the door to see what, if anything, was happening outside. Reuben stood there. She shrank back.

  “You sing good,” he said. He had his hat in his hand. He wiped his mouth with it.

  “Oh, thank you,” she said, so amazed that he could talk normal that some of the water went up her nose. Leaving the door open, Orphelia pulled up the overturned metal washtub, sat down on it, lifted her fingers in the air, and sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Reuben had returned to his place on the ground. He nodded his head to the music. She had an audience.

  The sun went down and tree frogs sang. Night birds chirped. Bats swooped across the sky. Orphelia felt freer than she had in many days. She wished Madame Meritta were there to hear her. From spirituals, she moved to school songs, then to nursery rhymes that she’d set to her own tunes. Feeling sassy, she tried “Camptown Races.”

  Then she began singing the bouncy melody to “Lewis County Rag.”

  Suddenly Reuben jumped up and pressed his hands to his ears. He shouted, “No, no, no, no, no!”

  Orphelia flinched and stopped singing. “What’s wrong?”

  But Reuben didn’t answer. He began to moan and mumble something she couldn’t make out. Orphelia sprang to her feet. Maybe he was sick. Or maybe he was going to try to hurt her.

  “Please,” she begged, her voice trembling, “I can’t understand what you’re trying to say What’s the matter?” But Reuben only moaned, keeping his hands pressed to his ears and rocking from side to side on his feet. Orphelia began to feel more sorry for him than scared.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, hoping to comfort him. “What did I do? Whatever it was, I swear I didn’t mean it!”

  To Orphelia’s relief, Reuben gradually began to calm down, but he still didn’t say anything.

  Orphelia couldn’t understand what had happened. This was the second time in two days she had seen an adult get hysterical over her music. Did he not like ragtime?

  Well, it didn’t look like she was going to get any answers from him. She decided to change the subject. Nodding toward the knife and carving that lay in the grass near him, she asked, “Can I see what you’re making with that piece of wood over there?”

  “No!” Reuben shouted. “They’re mine!” He snatched both objects and jumped up, waving the knife in his hand.

  Orphelia rushed inside and latched the door. She grabbed up Othello’s heavy black skillet and held it over her head.

  “You come in here and I’ll give you a skillet fit!” she yelled.

  Her heart pounded. Finally she lowered the skillet and peeked out the window. Reuben was nowhere to be seen.

  Late in the night the coaches returned. Orphelia heard men’s voices and that of a woman who was not Madame Meritta. The voices came and went. Orphelia longed to open the door and ask what had happened at the performance, but she thought better of it. She strained to listen through the knothole, unable to make out what was said.

  When the voices finally faded away, she unlatched the door and opened it just a crac
k. Through the crack, she was relieved to see Madame Meritta and Othello sitting on stools by a fire. Madame Meritta was leaning against him, and his arm was around her shoulder. Orphelia went back to her makeshift bed. Seeing them like that made her wonder if Momma and Poppa had made up from their argument. A sudden sweep of sadness rolled over her. Were Momma and Poppa missing her tonight? Would they ever understand how badly she wanted to play the music she loved?

  Some time later, she felt the wagon moving. They were on their way to Pitchfork Creek.

  CHAPTER 5

  PERFORM WITH PASSION!

  Orphelia woke up Saturday morning to the clear tones of a woman’s contralto voice singing. It reminded Orphelia of bells, or the rich, deep, golden peals of a church organ. In the background, a piano dragged behind the voice. It was Madame Meritta singing, but it wasn’t her playing.

  When Madame Meritta stopped and started again, the piano was still as poky as molasses. Orphelia giggled. She lifted her fingers into the air, following the song easily. But who in the world was torturing that poor piano? Someone banged on the keys as if hitting them with fists. The noise finally stopped and was quickly replaced by loud, angry voices.

  “If I’m playing bad, it’s cause that’s all you’re getting from me till you pay me my money!” a woman shouted.

  Orphelia peeked out the window. A woman wearing a blue feather boa around her neck stood in the doorway of the equipment wagon. She was jerking the end of the boa like an angry cat flicking its tail. She jabbed her forefinger at Madame Meritta, who stood on the ground below with her arms folded, face frowned up. “You shorted me five dollars last night, five before that, and five before that,” the woman snarled. “Give me my money, Maryanne, else I’m walking, and taking Robert with me!”

  “You keep shaking that finger in my face and they’re gonna call you ‘Nubs,’” Madame Meritta snapped. She glared at the woman like she really would bite that finger off. The feather in her turban poked the air as she bobbed her head back and forth. She blinked her eyes so fast they looked like hummingbird wings. “Lillian, are you threatening to quit? Right before Pitchfork Creek? Knowing I’m down to the bare bones with musicians?”