Free The Rosewood Casket by Sharyn McCrumb Page B

guitar was worth thousands of dollars, and that it had been in the Stargill family for more than fifty years, but that wasn’t what made her leery of the instrument. That guitar was like a part of Charles Martin, as if they were connected somehow, the way she’d heard that twins sometimes share feelings between them. He always knew where it was, and sometimes he’d take it out and rub the strings with a chamois cloth, as he was talking or watching television, stroking it as if it were a dog. She wasn’t surprised that Charles Martin had brought the guitar with him, even if he had ho intention of playing a note while he was at the homeplace. If he left Nashville for more than a day, the rosewood Martin went with him. Nobody else was even allowed to touch the case.
    “Was it your father’s guitar?” she asked.
    “My grandmother’s. His mother. They say it skips a generation. People used to say that I got my musical ability from her. Daddy said that she knew all the old ballads, and that she could play just about any instrument she picked up, without ever having a music lesson, or knowing how to read a note.”
    “Was she a country singer, too?”
    “No. The Carter family was a rarity back then. Mountain women generally didn’t get careers in show business. The story is that she had a homemade guitar that sounded like two cats in heat, and my grandaddy gave her the Martin for a Christmas present one year, with money he earned on his logging job in Carter County. Or maybe he won it at poker in the logging camp. She gave it to me when I was four, because I was the only one of the younguns that could carry a tune. And she never did sing any more by then. Daddy said she quit a long time before I was born.”
    “You’ve had that guitar since you were four?” There wasn’t a scratch on the gleaming rosewood, and the fretwork looked new.
    “Not to play,” he said. “Mommy put it up for me until I got older, for which I am eternally grateful to her, though they tell me I pitched a fit about it at the time. Thank goodness she didn’t take the strings off, or put it in a trunk in the attic. She didn’t even know it was worth anything, but she took care of it because it was a family treasure. Isn’t it funny? I bet that guitar is worth more than Daddy’s farm.”
    *   *   *
    Clayt spent the night up at the farm, sleeping in his clothes on the sofa because he didn’t have the energy to clean up an upstairs bedroom. It was probably knee deep in dust up there. Besides, he thought that one of his brothers would arrive any minute, and he wanted to be sure he heard their knocking so he could let them in. He half expected the hospital to call with news of his father’s passing, but when he opened his eyes to the gray light of early morning, all was still quiet.
    He put on a pot of coffee, hurrying to the front window every time he heard a car go by, but he ended up drinking three cups by himself, and pouring the rest down the sink. They hadn’t tried to drive straight through, then. He took a shower before he remembered that he had brought no clean clothes to change into. His father’s clothes were too small for him, but he took a clean pair of socks, and left his dirty ones in the hamper. He would have to go back to Jonesborough anyhow, though, because he had a school program that afternoon, and he needed his costume. He called the hospital, and was told that there was no change in Randall Stargill’s condition.
    “I’ll be by later in the morning,” Clayt told the nurse.
    When Robert and Lilah reached the house at eleven, they found a note taped to the front door. “Come on in,” it said. “Daddy is in the hospital, and I’ve gone to do a school program on Daniel Boone. Be back as soon as I can.—Clayt.”
    *   *   *
    A semicircle of third graders looked up at the frontiersman with expressions that ranged from wariness to open delight. Hands waved in the air before he even began to speak, but their