Fiddler, The Read online

  “My parents don’t know I’m a country fiddler, Michael. And they’ve never heard my country stage name, Amy Lee.”

  “Listen, Amelia . . . or whoever you’d like to be,” he said. “You can trust me.”

  Her eyes searched his face.

  “I’m sayin’ you can count on me . . . all right?”

  Tears filled her eyes, and she looked away. Then, after gathering herself, she slowly began to tell him about her other life. “The fiddling came out of necessity,” she said, grimacing. “I had to do something to make it all more bearable.”

  He listened intently to her unusual story—the gift that had appeared at such an early age, and the years of touring the country as a child prodigy. And the enormous expectation that she continue to perform and travel. Sprinkled in were occasional comments about her boyfriend—a trumpeter named Byron. And the more she revealed about her life, the more Michael sensed her frustration and disillusionment. Michael found it peculiar that she seemed to talk about this Byron as if she felt she ought to . . . not out of a sense of love, but out of obligation.

  Up till now, Michael had seen Amelia as a very confident young woman, musically and otherwise. So what was keeping her in the apparently less than satisfying relationship?

  Just then, he heard the distinct sound of a dinner bell clanging in the distance. In Hickory Hollow such signals were used at mealtime and for emergencies. Michael strained his ears, trying to decipher if this was his own father’s dinner bell. Clang, clang . . . pause. Then came the repeat—the agreed-upon pattern.

  “Something’s happened,” he said to Amelia, leaping to his feet. “I must get right home.”

  “What is it?” She rose quickly, as well, and brushed the grass off her long skirt.

  “The bell serves as a warning when it’s rung that way. My father needs my help.” Michael felt terrible running off and leaving her, but something was definitely wrong. I have no choice. He took off toward home, not looking back to see if Amelia was still standing there looking bewildered and concerned.

  Chapter 18

  The bell continued its disquieting call even after Michael was out of sight. Amelia wondered what could be happening in this small community populated with mostly Amish farmers and their families.

  Whispering a prayer of concern, she resumed her practice of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D, playing several measures of the opening movement, the most technically difficult section—the pyrotechnics, she liked to think of it. The popular piece was the ultimate romantic concerto by any standard. How she loved its torrent of sinuous melody, extravagant harmonies, the fast runs, and the musical tricks. And oh, the spirited finale! There were times when she felt as if she were falling in love all over again—with music, at least—when she performed the very challenging piece.

  Repetition had always helped her to iron out any rough spots. The speedy fingering in the allegro moderato first movement was sheer bliss when played perfectly. But going for a day without practicing was devastating to any violinist. To Amelia it was much more than keeping up with fingering or bowing techniques: It was about her well-being. Like the legendary violinist Sir Yehudi Menuhin once said, “Music is a life-support system.” The violin was such a part of Amelia’s daily existence, she felt lethargic, even ill, if she did not practice.

  Glad for the chance to play outdoors under the canopy of clouds and sky, she stayed put, not wanting to get in the way of whatever had triggered the alarm. Yet Michael had turned so white just before hurrying away. The remembrance made her even more anxious.

  Should I have gone with him?

  Lillianne was ever so relieved to see her older son Joseph and his wife, Lena, arrive on foot after she’d tugged on the warning bell. From her vantage point in the downstairs bedroom, she could see them hurrying up the walkway.

  The back door clacked shut as they came into the kitchen. Immediately Joseph called to her, inquiring about his father as he made his way into the bedroom, where Paul lay stretched out and pale as anything, not uttering a sound.

  “What happened?” Joseph asked, still wearing his old straw hat that had the beginnings of a hole on the crown.

  Dark-haired Lena crept into the room behind him, hanging back some, her big brown eyes wide. “Is he out cold?”

  Quickly, Lillianne explained that Paul had somehow managed to slip through one of the hay holes in the barn, turning his ankle when he landed below. “He’s conscious . . . but might need to rest some.”

  “Well, I’ll call a doctor,” Joseph said, indicating the very swollen ankle. “Sure looks broken.”

  Lillianne knew better than to say too much. Paul didn’t want to be made over, and Joseph and Lena were doing just that. “It would be a gut idea for a doctor to have a look-see, for sure.”

  Paul’s eyes flickered open just then. He moaned and closed them quickly when he saw all of them hovering near. His bangs were stuck to his forehead from perspiration. Eyes still shut, he flailed his hand, motioning for them to leave him be.

  Lillianne led the way, doing his bidding, and Joseph and Lena did the same, making their way to the kitchen. Lillianne leaned on the counter and shook her head. “No sense even sayin’ what oughta be done,” she whispered to them.

  “Jah, no doubt. Daed’s got his own mind.” Joseph removed his straw hat and ran his hands through his brown hair. “Sure hope Michael will stick around to help out now that Daed’s laid up.”

  “Hope so, too,” Lillianne agreed.

  “I wouldn’t think he’d run off again—” Joseph paused and glanced at Lena—“like our Elizabeth did.”

  “Could be they’re two peas in a pod,” Lena said. She pushed her Kapp strings back over her slender shoulders.

  Lillianne hated to think this. If only Michael hadn’t been bit by the education bug!

  If only a lot of things hadn’t happened round here . . .

  Another forty-five minutes passed, and while Amelia was accustomed to practicing four to five hours at a time, she decided to pack up and head back to Joanna’s. The way Michael had rushed off after hearing the alarm bell still nagged at her. What could be wrong?

  High clouds made the heat more tolerable as she walked through the meadow toward the house. When she reached the backyard, she heard someone calling. She looked up and saw a little Amishwoman in a blue dress and black apron sitting out on the small square porch of one of the attached houses on the main house’s east side. Amelia was taken off guard when the woman waved, smiling. “Yes?” Amelia called back.

  A delicate voice asked, “Are you Amelia?”

  “Yes.”

  “Kumme sit with me, won’t ya?”

  Glancing back at Joanna’s house, Amelia observed how quiet the place seemed—no one in sight. Have they all gone to the Hostetlers’?

  She walked up the narrow sidewalk, dotted to the right with red and white petunias. The petite house pushed out from the larger white clapboard farmhouse, an attached trellis adorned by many red climbing roses. A tall four-sided birdhouse stood halfway across the yard from the smaller house—a Dawdi Haus, Amelia had learned in Ohio.

  The elderly woman introduced herself as Mrs. Zook and said she had been visiting with Joanna’s Mammi—grandmother. “She’s takin’ her afternoon nap.” Without Amelia’s asking, the pretty little woman explained that everyone had gone over to Paul Hostetler’s to help out.

  “I wondered about that.” And when Amelia inquired as to what had happened, she was told that Paul had fallen from the upper level of the barn.

  She wondered why she hadn’t heard any sirens. “Is he badly hurt?”

  “Well, knowin’ how stubborn Paul is—Glotzkopp!—I doubt he’d think of goin’ to a hospital or doctor for even a broken limb. He’ll just wrap it up and hobble round.”

  “But wouldn’t the pain be too difficult to manage?” She’d never heard of not seeking medical help for something like that.

  The older woman shook her head. “Ach, ya don’t know the man
!”

  Amelia was horrified as she contemplated the possibility of leaving such an injury untreated. “I heard the bell earlier.”

  “Jah, ’tis the farmers’ way of callin’ for help round here.” Mrs. Zook explained that there’d be plenty of folk over there doing Paul’s chores in the barn and out in the field, too. “Ev’ryone pitches in—shares the load.”

  This tugged at Amelia’s heart. “Like one big happy family, as the saying goes.”

  The woman pushed back in her rocker, her wrinkled hands gripping the chair arms. “There are times when things are far from happy, believe me. Just like with any family, I ’spect.”

  Amelia found it interesting that the woman would be so forthright. “Did Joanna ask you to watch for me? Is that how you knew my name?”

  Mrs. Zook smiled. “Jah. She told me to listen till the music stopped . . . an’ you’d be a-comin’. And then, there ya were, just like Joanna said.”

  “You heard me playing all the way over here?”

  “Why, sure. Ain’t deaf yet!”

  Amelia was mortified. “No . . . no, I didn’t mean to imply . . .”

  The woman reached over and tapped Amelia’s knee. “Now, honey-girl, I was just pullin’ your leg. All right?” She leaned back then, holding on to the chair once again. Sighing, she closed her eyes for a moment. “Can ya hear Gott’s music on the breeze?” she asked, her eyes still shut.

  “Sometimes.”

  “That same gentle wind carried your music right here to me.” Mrs. Zook’s blue eyes fluttered open. “Heard ev’ry note.” Then, turning her head, she fixed her gaze on Amelia. “You sure can make a fiddle talk.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And I don’t mean just talk, mind ya, but sing and dance and carry on like there’s no tomorrow.” The woman’s hands were suddenly in the air, flapping about in a dance of their own. “I sure hope you ain’t just sittin’ under a tree playin’ such perty notes every day, now, are ya?” She looked at Amelia. “Such music’s meant to be shared. Just as any blessing is.”

  Mrs. Zook’s candor again caught Amelia off guard, yet she sensed the woman was harmless as a dove. “No, I rarely practice in a cow pasture. In fact, that was the first time ever.”

  “Well, why not play right here on the porch or in the house somewhere? Ain’t because someone’s said folks would object, is it?”

  “Actually, I—”

  “Puh! I guessed as much!” Mrs. Zook leaned nearly out of her rocking chair. “Listen to me, dearie. You have a wunnerbaar-gut gift. Don’t ya hide your light under a bushel on account of someone’s warning.” She ran her hand across her high forehead. “You’ll hear all kinds of peculiar things if ya stay round here long enough.”

  “Oh, I’m just visiting a short time.”

  “We’ll see ’bout that,” she said. “Hickory Hollow tends to be a bit addictive to some folk. You ain’t the first Englischer to stumble across these parts and decide to hang your hat for a spell.”

  The woman had arrested Amelia’s attention from her first word, and Amelia was even more inquisitive now. “Were those outsiders you just mentioned very well accepted? I mean, were they frowned upon for not dressing Plain?” Amelia worried she might offend especially Joanna’s parents with her modern attire, since they were hosting her. And rather hesitantly at that.

  “Frowned on for bein’ fancy—for who they are?” The woman tittered. “Well, if they aren’t Amish, they’d better not be dressin’ like us!”

  “Makes sense.” Amelia leaned back, more content now in Mrs. Zook’s presence. The woman sat straight and tall for her advanced age, and although she was a bit prickly, Amelia found her confident manner irresistible.

  Mrs. Zook eyed the fiddle case. “You didn’t just start playin’ that fiddle yesterday, now, did ya?”

  Amelia caught the flash of mischief in her watery blue eyes. “And not last week, either,” Amelia teased right back.

  “S’posin’ you were a wee one when ya first took it up.”

  “My father said I was only three and a half when I first showed interest in his violin,” Amelia said, remembering it like it was just last week. “He was a very accomplished touring violinist and could play like no one else I’ve ever known.” She quickly explained that, back in the day, her father’s remarkable tone and easy style were touted by many as similar to a young Isaac Stern. “The way he immersed himself in the music allowed audiences to detect the genius of the actual composer, more than my father’s own interpretation. Dad had an uncanny way of making the music spring to life.”

  Mrs. Zook seemed interested, her face alight.

  “He liked to say that music has a way of perfecting the performer, and not the other way around.” Pausing, Amelia suddenly missed him. “But that all changed . . . when Dad became very ill.”

  “Aw, now . . . say.” Mrs. Zook pursed her lips, the wrinkles around them like so many gathers in a skirt. “Is he still living, your father?”

  “Thankfully, yes.” Amelia nodded. “I actually got the idea from him to play fiddle tunes, but he doesn’t know it. You see, my dad, like Isaac Stern, called himself ‘a fiddle player.’ ” She contemplated whether or not she was revealing too much.

  “Go on,” Mrs. Zook prompted her. “Sei so gut!—Please!”

  Amelia couldn’t help but be taken by her enthusiasm. “My father doesn’t know anything about my country fiddling and would be very displeased if he did.”

  An endearing smile appeared. “Is the fiddlin’ you mention different from what I just heard ya playin’ in the meadow?”

  “Very different in some ways and quite similar in others, depending on the piece.”

  “I see.” Mrs. Zook paused and glanced at her curiously. “I’m thinkin’ I’d like to hear a fiddle tune, yuscht to hear the contrast, ya know.”

  “Sure, I’ll play for you sometime before I leave. I would be happy to.”

  They talked easily, like old friends. Three Amish friends in less than twenty-four hours, thought Amelia, more delighted than ever that she’d opted to stay awhile.

  Mrs. Zook was particularly interested in Amelia’s upbringing as a “wee fiddler.”

  “My father was my first encourager. He believed that a child’s playing is filled with honesty—unlike adult performers, whose feelings can be curbed, even suppressed, over time.”

  “Who better to understand than a parent? The People know that, for sure and for certain, as we pass down the simple gifts to the next generation.”

  The simple gifts . . .

  “Michael mentioned that to me, too.”

  Silently, the woman nodded.

  Uneasy because of her own sudden mention of Michael, Amelia changed the subject. “How long do you expect Joanna and her parents to be gone?”

  “Oh, they’ll be back for afternoon milkin’ at four-thirty. The cows can’t wait.”

  They sat a bit longer, enjoying the sun and the birds and rocking away their cares in the hickory rockers, the two chairs swaying in the same rhythm.

  “You sure do give yourself up to your music, Miss Amelia.”

  “It’s been nearly my whole life . . . our house was constantly filled with music. It was my dad’s great love.”

  “Well, and you must enjoy it, too.”

  Amelia pondered that. She did love music, but she wanted to avoid talking about her life, the fame and stardom eagerly sought by the top musicians. Not with this humble woman. “Yes, I’m passionate about what I do.” She paused for a moment, feeling strangely compelled to tell what had been buried in her soul for too long. “It’s just that . . .”

  The dear woman’s eyes held Amelia’s own, as if looking deep into her open heart. And in that awkward moment, Amelia realized Mrs. Zook must be the Wise Woman that Michael had talked so glowingly about.

  “Are you . . . Ella Mae?” she asked.

  “Why, they call me all sorts of things, but jah, Ella Mae’s what my Mamma called me first.”

  Micha
el was right. She has a way about her. . . .

  “You all right, child?”

  If only Ella Mae hadn’t asked! The woman was much too sweet and sympathizing. Amelia pulled herself together. “When I play for crowds of people on the concert stage . . . as I tour all over the country,” she blurted out, “I sometimes wonder if I perform in hopes of somehow finding my way . . . my purpose.”

  “Oh, now, honey-girl.”

  Amelia looked away. “It must sound strange to you.”

  “Not a’tall.”

  “But even if I wanted to stop my touring now and pursue marriage and a family, my father would never hear of it,” she added, giving in to tears. “I feel stuck.”

  Ella Mae’s eyes probed again. “Well, then, can ya remember what I’m ’bout to say, Miss Amelia?”

  She listened, her heart swelling with tenderness again.

  “There’s only one person ya need to think about ever pleasin’,” Ella Mae said quietly. “Only one.”

  Amelia recalled the many nights she and Grammy had talked about such things while they sat outdoors eating strawberry ice cream and watching fireflies flicker in the pastureland.

  Ella Mae stopped rocking and turned in her chair slightly, and a thoughtful expression played across her crinkly face. “You’re a mighty talented young woman—perty, too. If ya ask me, your maiden days are numbered.”

  Amelia felt her cheeks blush.

  Ella Mae smiled. “You have tender emotions; I heard it in your playin’ . . . mighty deep ones, I s’pect. But there’s no sense playin’ music unless you’re called to it, jah?”

  Amelia listened.

  “Do ya ever think that you play to please the Lord God above?”

  It had been a long time since Amelia had considered pleasing the Almighty within the equation of her career.

  Ella Mae continued. “I believe you want to make a difference in this ol’ world, ain’t so?”

  She reached for Ella Mae’s thin, freckled hand. “Your fame certainly precedes you,” Amelia said, smiling through her tears.