佚名 /Anonymous
Wanted: Violin. Can't pay much. Call...
Why did I notice that? I wondered, since I rarely look at the classif ied ads. I laid the paper on my lap and closed my eyes, remembering what had happened during the Great Depression, when my family struggled to make a living on our farm. I, too, had wanted a violin, but we didn't have the money...
When my older twin sisters began showing an interest in music, Harriet Anne learned to play Grandma's upright piano, while Suzanne turned to Daddy's violin, simple tunes soon became lovely melodies as the twins played more and more. Caught up in the rhythm of the music, my baby brother danced around while daddy hummed and mother whistled. I just listened.
When my arms grew long enough, I tried to play Suzanne's violin, I loved the mellow sound of the f irm bow drawn across the strings. Oh, how I wanted one! But I knew it was out of the question.
One evening as the twins played in the school orchestra, I closed my eyes tight to capture the picture f irmly in my mind. Someday, I'll sit up there, I vowed silently.
It was not a good year. At harvest the crops did not bring as much as we had hoped, I couldn't wait any longer to ask, “Daddy, may I have a violin of my own?”
“Can't you use Suzanne's?”
“I'd like to be in the orchestra, too, and we can't both use the same violin at the same time.”
Daddy's face looked sad. That night, and many following nights, I heard him remind God in our family devotions, “... and Lord, Mary Lou wants her own violin.”
One evening we all sat around the table. The twins and I studied. Mother sewed, and daddy wrote a letter to his friend, George F inkle, in Columbus. Mr. F inkle, daddy said, was a f ine violinist.
As he wrote, daddy read parts of his letter out loud to mother. Weeks later I discovered he'd written one line he didn't read aloud: “Would you watch for a violin for my third daughter? I can't pay much, but she enjoys music, and we'd like her to have her own instrument.”