The Minstrel's Melody

by Eleanora E. Tate

  “I’m tired of you always got to be the star when you said I’d be the featured act. Yes, I’ll leave you”—Lillian snapped her fingers—“just like that if you don’t give me my money right now.”

  Madame Meritta snapped her fingers, too. “Then let the screen door hit ya where I’m about to kick ya! And take Robert with you. I can get another Grand Master.”

  Madame Meritta caught Orphelia’s eye. “And you’re next!” Orphelia ducked down. Darn! Too nosy and too slow!

  Orphelia wondered why the woman had called Madame Meritta “Maryanne.” She’d heard some of the other musicians call her by that name, too. “Madame Meritta” must be her stage name, Orphelia thought as she reached into the beef barrel, pulled out a strip of meat, and bit off a chunk. It was tough as twine, but it was still food. Better get something to eat while she had a chance. The trains she remembered riding on didn’t usually have food, and besides, she had no money to buy any with. Momma’s fatback and hominy would taste mighty good right now.

  Momma. Didn’t matter what Madame Meritta said about Momma changing her mind. Momma’s brain turned into concrete sometimes. Maybe that’s what Pearl knew so well and tried to avoid at all costs, even if it meant lying.

  Orphelia had to smile a little. In the day and a half that she’d been gone, Pearl probably had to take over her chores—helping with Friday’s washing and ironing, drying the dishes, sweeping and scrubbing all the floors—plus her own work. With all those extra jobs, would Pearl now have to hear Momma’s criticisms when she didn’t do them perfectly? Heaven help me if I have to go back today! thought Orphelia. She’d have to deal with Momma and Pearl both! While Poppa sat in the outhouse smoking. Humph!

  “Orphelia!” Othello called out. Was he coming to take her to the train station already? Slowly she opened the door. He held out a tray of hot buttered biscuits and a bowl of something that smelled spicy. “A simple New Orleans specialty for you, ma chère.”

  “Oh, ain’t this nice! Thank you!” Sniffing eagerly, she took the steaming tray and began gobbling down the food. “This is delicious! I love chicken and rice.” Munching on the biscuit, she handed him back the empty bowl and tray, wishing she could have more. She decided that she liked Othello. He seemed to like her, too. “Is this what you call gumbo?”

  “This is gumbo, yes,” he said, “but with crayfish that I caught from the creek, down the hill there. You call them crawdaddies. Not many folks eat them around here, but we do in New Orleans.”

  Crawdaddies?! Everybody around Calico Creek only used crawdaddies as bait to catch fish! Ugh! Orphelia broke into a sweat. She clapped her hand over her mouth and waited for her stomach to bring everything back up.

  Othello laughed over his shoulder as he left. “Shoo, you won’t get sick. Now we need to be off for Pitchfork Creek and get you on a train. Be ready.”

  When she didn’t throw up, Orphelia wiped her face with a flour sack and smoothed back the hair that had loosened from her braids.

  She pressed her lips together and took a deep breath. It was now or never.

  Orphelia left the wagon through the door. She ran across the yard and up the steps of the equipment wagon. Perform with passion! she commanded herself. She sat down at the piano, counted to herself, and began to play and sing “Listen to the Mockingbird” as loudly as she could. Next, even knowing that she risked her chance of getting into heaven by singing sassy songs, she swung into “Camptown Races,” “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” and “Oh, Dem Golden Slippers.”

  She saw Madame Meritta and Othello come and stand below her. Without missing a beat, she nodded at them. Some people she didn’t recognize joined them, listening. Show passion! After one stanza of “Golden Slippers,” she popped up from the piano stool and did the cakewalk with an imaginary Cap. And I’ll keep on singing till she makes me stop, she told herself. When nobody stopped her, she bounced back down onto the piano stool and sang another stanza of “Golden Slippers.” She finished with “This Little Light of Mine.”

  Orphelia stood up, raised her arms to the sky, and then curtsied. Everybody applauded, including Madame Meritta. Only Reuben stood off to the side, motionless, staring at her with that one beady eye of his. A tiny shiver made its way up Orphelia’s spine.

  She looked away quickly. Madame Meritta was whispering something to Othello. Orphelia bit her lip. Say you liked it, please! she begged silently.

  Finally Madame Meritta spoke. “Thank you, Orphelia, for that wonderful serenade.” Orphelia broke into a grin. “Now come down from the piano so we can pull out and find a train depot.”

  Orphelia hung her head at the fatal words. Tears blinded her. She stumbled down the stairs.

  “That little gal can thump them ivories, Maryanne,” said the banjo player, who also took care of the horses. His name was Laphet. “Voice ain’t halfway bad, either.”

  “She can shake a leg, too,” said the man Artimus, who played the drums. “And she’s a lot prettier than Lillian, tell you that for sure.”

  “But Artimus, Laphet, she’s only twelve years old!” Madame Meritta stamped her foot so hard that Orphelia jumped. “And a runaway. Don’t you know what that means? The sheriff’ll be on me in a minute for kidnapping!”

  “But you don’t have a featured act for this afternoon,” Othello said. “Unless you mean Bertha.” He drew out the woman’s name, glancing up at the sky like he was horrified at the thought.

  “If Bertha even shows up,” said Artimus, a slender, brown-skinned man whose booming voice reminded Orphelia of Reverend Rutherford’s. “She’s so sometimey; tell you one thing, do another. She’s liable to be still hangin’ out in St. Louie, singin’ and dancin.’”

  Madame Meritta continued to argue with Othello, Artimus, and Laphet. Orphelia thought of something else. “Madame Meritta, ma’am,” she broke in as politely as she could. “I have a newspaper article with a picture of you singing with the Magnificent Missouri Colored Minstrels. You were maybe thirteen or fourteen, but you wore a baby bonnet and a baby gown and you had a rattle in your hand. The paper said all minstrel shows had a person who played that character. Can’t I play that in your show, too?”

  Madame Meritta’s hazel eyes got so dark they looked black. “You obviously are too ignorant to know that that ‘character’ is an insult to our race. It’s meant to degrade and poke fun at black children. When I was old enough not to have to perform in that capacity, I stopped. No one—absolutely no one—in my shows has ever performed as one of those, and you won’t, either. Orphelia, please understand that your talent isn’t the issue. Show business is the issue. This life isn’t for a child. You’ll have no playmates, no schooling, no free time, no—”

  “I don’t mean to sound sassy, but I hear that your shows aren’t making much money right now. Without me, you won’t have a featured act, like what Mr. Othello just said, and then you’ll make even less because the people’ll want their money back, won’t they?”

  Madame Meritta jerked her head back like Orphelia had slapped her. “Who told you that?”

  Orphelia pointed at Othello, who nodded. Madame Meritta threw Othello a frown that gave her pretty face more wrinkles than a raisin.

  “Madame, we need this girl,” Othello said in a soothing voice. “Just for this afternoon. If no one says anything to the sheriff about her, then no one will know. She’ll be much easier to work with than that old hateful Lillian. Better piano player, too. I’ll never know what you saw in that woman. Madame, we—let’s take a walk.”

  They went behind the equipment wagon. Orphelia stood nearby, watching their lips move as they whispered and shook fingers at each other. Artimus, Laphet, and the other musicians went back to packing their gear.

  When she peeked at them again, Othello was smiling. Madame Meritta gave out a long, loud “Oh, all right, Othello!”

  Was that a good sign? When Madame Meritta called her name, Orphelia hurried over. She wiped her sweaty face with her hands and tried to think of what to say next in her fa
vor if the news was not good.

  “All right, you can perform—just this one time,” Madame Meritta said.

  “Oh, thank you!” Orphelia wrapped her arms around the woman’s waist, which smelled like lavender and talcum powder. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  “As soon as we find an office, we’re sending a telegram to your family, and first thing tomorrow morning, you’re getting on that train. You understand?”

  “You won’t be sorry. I’ll be so good! I’ll—”

  “You’ll hold your tongue is what you’ll do,” Madame Meritta said sternly. She tilted Orphelia’s face up with her finger and gazed deeply into her eyes. “Don’t you ever tell anybody that my shows don’t make money, you hear? This is serious business, and you know nothing about my kind of audiences, no matter what your sassy little tongue says.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Orphelia said. She hugged Madame Meritta again. Her chance—her chance at last!

  “It’s a mystery how you can win over Othello and me but you can’t get your mother to accept your music, eh?” Madame Meritta teasingly pinched her on the cheek.

  Orphelia stared back at her somberly. “Momma doesn’t understand that I just got to play my piano and sing, no matter what. It’s like the songs gotta come twisting out of my heart. You know what I mean?”

  “More than you could ever know.”

  Othello approached, shaking his head and looking distressed. Orphelia had a horrifying thought. Had he changed his mind about her? Could he make Madame change her mind again, too?

  “I can’t find Lillian’s outfit.” He was so frowned up, his mustache was really bristling now. “I bet she and Robert took their costumes with them, which weren’t theirs to take. Bless their thieving hides!”

  Madame Meritta explained to Orphelia that Lillian had played an orphan boy and wore a coat, trousers, derby, blouse, stockings, and brogans. “Now where are we going to find clothes like that to fit you by this afternoon?”

  One bad thing after another! Orphelia thought. She kept quiet. Would lack of the right clothes keep her from her biggest chance?

  “Time to go. Maybe we can find something in my trunks.” Madame took Orphelia by the hand and headed for her sleeper coach. “Othello, Artimus, everybody, on to Pitchfork Creek!”

  Orphelia followed the woman to the coach, where Artimus sat waiting in the wagon seat with the horses’ reins in his hands. He was also the stage manager and the repairman. Orphelia struggled to keep a dignified appearance, but it was hard to keep from leaping and screaming with joy. One step at a time, she told herself. If I’m good enough this afternoon, maybe she won’t put me on that train. “Did you like my songs? What time do I come on? How long do I sing? Can I dance, too?”

  “You can hush up until I can sit down and think,” Madame Meritta said. Orphelia climbed up after her into the sleeper coach and froze. This was where Madame lived when she was on the road?

  Lined up against one wall inside the coach were three beds as thin as stretchers. Humpback trunks and stacks of boxes bulging with papers, shoes, and other items spilled over by each bed. A tattered brown and yellow carpet covered part of the rough wood floor. At one end of the coach sat a monstrous dresser with a basin and cracked pitcher, and jumbled trays of toiletries. Opposite the beds was a full-length mirror with pictures, posters, and postcards plastered around the edges. Three large, doorless cabinets were crammed with gowns, coats, and scarves. Other garments swayed on hooks suspended from the ceiling in the remaining corners and crevices of the coach. A thick, stale fragrance of lavender, talcum, pomade, and camphor choked the hot air. Slop jars were probably under the beds, too. Orphelia hoped Madame Meritta wouldn’t give her the job of emptying them.

  Madame sat down on one of the beds and removed a pile of clothes from the top of a trunk. “Pull that green curtain open so we can get some fresh air. And sit down.”

  Orphelia squeezed past a hook of clothes and sat down by Madame Meritta. “How many people live in here?” The whole coach didn’t seem to be much bigger than her and Pearl’s room back home. Trying to keep from frowning, she slapped at a fly.

  “Counting Lillian, me, and Bertha—the one in St. Louis—usually three women. Sometimes four or five when we’re really busy. It can get crowded in here, but I can’t afford a private coach for me and Othello. You can take Lillian’s bed there if you need to rest on the way.”

  Madame Meritta banged on the wall, and the coach began to move.

  Your railroad coaches and private dining cars are in St. Louis, huh? Orphelia wanted to ask, but she didn’t.

  As if Madame Meritta had read her mind, she said, “I do travel by rail from time to time. I have a lot more room in boxcars, but trains are expensive. I’ve had to patch together the coaches we’re using right now. This is a hard life, Orphelia.”

  “Well, I’ve been meaning to ask how come you don’t have a Mr. Interlocutor. Why’s your main man called a Grand Master instead?”

  “A Grand Master is almost the same thing, but he doesn’t have to play the straight man and be the butt of the other actors’ jokes. I want my master of ceremonies to be taken seriously, not made out to be some kind of fool. I don’t have a Mr. Bones and Mr. Tambo, either. They’re the ‘end men’ in minstrel shows—you know, the comedians who poke fun at Mr. Interlocutor. And I don’t have female impersonators or jugglers, the way most minstrel shows do. In fact, Orphelia, I don’t really have a true minstrel show. I’m a musician, and I want pure music and dance. My core group is pretty much with me now, except for some folks still in St. Louis.

  “It seems like minstrel shows are evolving anyway,” Madame Meritta continued. “There’s vaudeville and music theater. New people are coming in and forming all kinds of shows that they don’t even call ‘minstrel’ anymore. But it’s exciting, too, Orphelia. I met a girl down in the heel of Missouri singing a sad, sad song in a tent show, but with that old Missouri stomp beat. A woman I was sitting by said that kind of music was going to be as big as ragtime in a few years. She said that now they’re calling it ‘the blues,’ and colored women blues singers are gonna hit it big. You don’t see many colored women playing ragtime, but this blues—it just makes you pull your heart out your mouth and show it to everybody.”

  “I’ve never heard of blues music. I think I’ve felt that way a lot, though,” said Orphelia.

  “If I had my dream come true, I’d buy a building in St. Louis, turn it into an opera house, and bring in all those first-class music shows like Black Patti’s Troubadours and the Fisk Jubilee Singers.”

  “I’ve heard of them!” Orphelia said. She leaned forward, eager to know more about Madame Meritta’s plans. “What else would you do?”

  Madame Meritta began to dig around in a trunk. “I wouldn’t be out on the road like this, that’s for sure. I’ve been out here since I was twelve, and I’m tired.”

  “But don’t you want to still travel around the world?” This person sitting by Orphelia was sounding less and less like the fabulous Madame Meritta, star of the Traveling Troubadours, and more and more like an ordinary woman. Orphelia hunched over, put her chin on her hand, and looked out the window at the fields of wheat and corn passing by.

  “People change, my dear.” Madame Meritta paused in her searching. “I want to settle down and give music lessons to aspiring singers.”

  “Like me?” Orphelia sat up straighter. Madame Meritta shrugged and went back to digging without answering.

  Orphelia knelt beside her and peered into the trunk. She pulled out a gray uniform coat with brass buttons. It reminded her a little of the one Uncle Winston had on in his portrait. She had to fight off a wave of homesickness. “My uncle, my momma’s brother, played a cornet. He’s dead now, though.” She sighed. “Do you think maybe I could wear this in the show?”

  “Oh, chile, no, that’s way too big for you. It used to be one of Robert’s costumes—I guess that thieving scoundrel didn’t make off with everything after all. Maybe I’ll
give it to Reuben. He has one like it, but it’s pretty old and tattered.”

  At the mention of Reuben’s name, Orphelia shuddered, suddenly recalling his crazy outburst the night before and the look on his face this afternoon. Should she tell Madame Meritta about it? Yesterday Othello had been singing Reuben’s praises. Would Madame Meritta get mad at Orphelia now, accuse her of upsetting him? But what if Reuben really was dangerous?

  “That Reuben is pretty strange,” she began. “Last night while you all were gone, I was singing in the wagon. He got real upset all of a sudden.”

  “Upset how?” Madame Meritta stopped rummaging through the trunk but didn’t look up.

  Orphelia told her what had happened. Then she waited to be scolded.

  But Madame Meritta only said, “Yes, he does act in odd ways sometimes.”

  “How did he end up here with you all?” asked Orphelia.

  Madame Meritta explained that they’d found Reuben some years ago. They were returning from Keokuk, Iowa, and were coming through northeast Missouri. They were camped near the Mississippi River not far from Hannibal.

  Madame held up a shirt, shook her head, and held up another. “Way late that night I was doing something—I forget what—at the edge of the camp. And I felt this wet, slimy hand on my shoulder. I screamed! Othello and everybody came running. Here was this man, so dirty and raggedy and skinny he looked like he’d crawled out of a grave in the backwaters. The man collapsed as soon as Othello grabbed him. We fed him and cleaned him up. He could barely talk. Had scars and scabs all over him. When we left to go on to St. Louis, he followed us—on foot—for so many miles that Othello took pity on him. He’s been with us ever since.”

  Orphelia shivered, remembering the long, ropelike scar that stretched from one side of his neck to the other. “He was doing all right till I was singing the melody to ‘Lewis County Rag.’ Then he got the hysterics.”