The Minstrel's Melody Read Online Free PDF

around and frowned a little at Momma. He pointed to the stage. “She has a huge entourage and a string of boxcars—I’ve seen ’em—but they say she’s sent most of them on to St. Louis to get ready for the fair. I doubt if she’ll perform tonight. It’s a talent show for the kids, remember?”
    Momma said, “Oh,” and sniffed.
    Orphelia looked around for Clementine. She was standing by the stage with the other competitors, including the boy in the Lincoln clothes. He had removed his top hat and was fanning himself with it. A boy who had supposedly rode his pet mule all the way from Canton with a big cello was drinking water. She didn’t see Cap. When she had told him this morning that they’d been withdrawn, he’d just shrugged and said that Pearl needed to control her mouth better.
    A barefoot boy in a straw hat and denim overalls held a paintbrush and bucket. Orphelia figured he was portraying a character from one of the books by that Hannibal writer, Mark Twain.
    Momma had forbidden Orphelia and Pearl to read any of the man’s books because she said the language in his books was not morally uplifting. But one night when Orphelia had slept over at Clementine’s, they had read several chapters of one of his books that had been serialized in the Hannibal newspaper. The story did have disgusting words in it. Other parts were funny Orphelia and Clementine wondered if that man Jim in the book ever got free.
    Orphelia recognized two girls in matching green dresses and pompadour hairstyles, plucking violins. They had participated in Hannibal’s Emancipation Celebration festivities, billing themselves as “The Hannibal Twins, Prodigies on Violins.”
    The audience included white people, too. Orphelia didn’t recognize a lot of people. They must have been from outside the county.
    Miz Rutherford stepped upon the platform and rang her school bell for silence. “Ladies and gentlemen and little gentlemen and little ladies. What a momentous occasion it is for us to be so very privileged to have among us the marvelous Madame Meritta of St. Louis, Missouri. Madame Meritta, as you know, is the owner of Madame Meritta’s Marvelous Traveling Troubadours. She is here with us tonight seeking Missouri’s most talented young artists. Of course, she’ll find them right here in Lewis County, won’t she?”
    Everybody applauded. Some of the boys stamped their feet and whistled. Miz Rutherford went on. “Madame Meritta has traveled and performed around the world and before all of the royal families of Europe. She is among Missouri’s most popular Negro musicians and is one of the state’s and country’s few minstrel show owners of feminine persuasion. We thank her deeply for giving of her precious time to visit our humble county and to give our children an opportunity to exhibit their talents here tonight.”
    Miz Rutherford went on talking like that until Orphelia wanted to shout, “Please, please, please get on with the show!”
    Finally she left the stage. Orphelia leaned forward in anticipation. Then Reverend Rutherford came on and asked them to close their eyes and bow their heads. He offered up a prayer thanking God for bringing Madame Meritta to their school and church, and he asked God to continue to watch over everybody and to give special guidance to the young competitors who represented the cream of Lewis County.
    Or most of it, Orphelia whispered to herself. The pain of being left out twisted at her heart.
    As soon as he said amen, people around her gasped and began to applaud. Orphelia opened her eyes. Standing on the platform was the famous Madame Meritta at last. She wore a sleeveless turquoise silk gown, covered with a sparkly goldlike dust. A filmy white shawl lay lightly around her shoulders and hung down to the floor. On her head was a turquoise turban, one tail of which trailed down her right cheek. The