A gift …

This piece of prose is a memory from 1952, written as a gift in 1975, kept and used again recently …

It was late and she was tired. The sticky August heat and the buzz of a mosquito kept her awake. She sat up waving her arms to ward off the attack. Exhausted, she fell back on her pillow and watched the shadows on her ceiling, worried the shadows would suddenly change and become demons.

Then slowly the sounds, soft and low, began to float through the air and into her room. The sounds of Andrew’s harmonica as he sat in the big parlor chair and played. Often Andrew would wait until the family was sleeping and the lights were out. Wait until only the rays of the streetlights lit the room, streaming through the tiny panes of the living room window, small, square like prisms catching the yellow light and bouncing it back against the parlor walls in a brilliant splash of color.

In the background she heard the faint rumble of a freight train, its whistle long and mournful as it sped through the night. She heard a tug boat out in the bay, its horn on and off in the summer fog, the sounds of a slow summer night, the clang of a trolley car passing by and the sounds of his soulful tune. The sweet liquid sounds of Andrew’s harmonica.

Andrew’s music filled the room like smoke and fragrance and imaginings of catching a freight train to faraway places, sailing off into the horizon to find mystery and adventure.

Carefully, Antoinette went to the foot of her bed and peaked around the corner of the open doorway to watch him, holding her breath for fear he would see her and break the spell. Andrew’s eyes were closed and his head pushed back into the chair, fingers and palms wrapped around the bright silver instrument, the low moan of the harmonica filled the room. Slowly she slipped back into her bed smiling as he made another dark night pass without shadows or fears.

Whenever Antoinette heard the sound of a harmonica she thought of freight trains to faraway places and sailing off into the horizon, of mystery and adventure and hot sticky summer nights. The buzz of a mosquito and young girls wide-awake watching shadows dancing on the ceiling, and feeling safe. Antoinette was indeed content to have her family around her, but it was Andrew that made her feel safe. When he was away the house was too quiet.

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