Free The Minstrel's Melody by Eleanora E. Tate

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?”
    â€œThis 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.
    â€œThat 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.”
    â€œShe 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.”
    â€œBut 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!”
    â€œBut 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.
    â€œIf 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’