The Fiddle
My new dress is so beautiful I can scarcely bring myself to touch it. Mama’s fixing to sew ivory lace around its collar and cuffs, but otherwise it’s finished, a dress fit for a true lady. Nobody will think I’m a young’un in that dress.
My hair comes next. After I unbraid it, I stand in front of Mama’s mirror, grab my loose hair with one hand and twist it with the other. The first hand jabs in hairpins as fast as my fingers can move. When I’ve used every hairpin on Mama’s bureau, more hair hangs loose than stays pinned. Mama makes it look so easy. I reckon I need more practice—and more hairpins.
As evening wraps its dark cocoon around the house, Daddy gives me a lesson on my flute. After I play Dixie Land with only two mistakes, he pulls his fiddle from its keeping place under the bed.
He blows dust off the case, opens it, and his fingers run rosin along the bow. I see the bow’s faint path in the amber-colored rosin and breathe deeply through my nose. The oily scent makes me recollect cozy January nights.
Like story-telling, Daddy’s fiddle-playing is a treat usually saved for winter evenings. Springtime days are so jam-packed with work that Daddy’s dog-tongue tired by dark, so I’m surprised when he gets out the fiddle.
He tunes it and tells me to play Dixie Land again. When I do, he joins in. His bow slides right slow across the strings so I won’t fall behind. At the sink, Mama claps her wet, soapy hands when we finish.
Behind her, the screen door squeaks open, and Grandpa steps into the light. “Nobody told me there’d be a fiddle-playin’ tonight.” He pulls up a chair. “Know where your pa got that fiddle, Ginnie Lee?”
I shake my head.
“Lady name of Verlie Dawes give it to ‘im on her deathbed.”
“She wasn’t on her deathbed,” Daddy corrects, “but she knew her fiddle-playin’ days was past.” He looks at me. “Verlie Dawes learned me to play the fiddle when I was a sprout.”
“Poor woman died with nary a trace’a kin ta leave the fiddle to,” Grandpa says. “Sad thing when a body leaves this earth with no one left ta grieve or remember.”
“Lots’a folks grieved,” Daddy says. “And lots’a folks remember. The fiddle makes me recollect her kindness, and its feel in my fingers reminds me the true gift she give me.”
“Let’s hear more’a that gift,” Grandpa says.
Daddy nods at me, and we play Dixie Land again.
“Jiggers!” Grandpa’s leathery hands applaud. “Sweet enough ta make Stonewall Jackson hisself bawl like a baby.” It’s high praise when Grandpa invokes the name of Stonewall.”
