by Diane Noble
“He’s the one who believes… believes in angels and God helping us when we need Him. I know Mister Taggart’s the one who could make everyone who comes to our show believe, too. I just know it.” There was a sting behind her nose and eyes, and she blinked a few times and swallowed hard to make it go away.
“Maybe your ma can’t really get Mister Taggart in trouble. Or maybe she’ll change her mind,” Cady said. But she did not sound convinced.
Daisy sighed. “My ma doesn’t ever change her mind once it’s made up.”
Just then their teacher, Miss Penney, stepped from the schoolhouse. The pretty, flaxen-haired schoolmarm looked surprised to see the children, likely because they were not supposed to be let go from the music room before the orchestra lessons were over. Miss Penney frowned at the pocket watch that hung from a long strand of red ribbon around her neck, then she rang the handbell.
At the sound of the bell, the subdued children lined up before Miss Penney. Behind her, in the schoolhouse, sat the other half of the students that made up the twenty-seven in Red Bud school. In the last row, Daisy’s sisters and brothers twisted in their seats, looking slightly pale. Had they seen their mother stomp into Mister Taggart’s music room?
“Miss Penney, Miss Penney!” Cady raised her hand and hooked it behind her head, holding it in place with her other arm, elbow akimbo. She was always the first to tell anything, and Daisy sighed deeply, knowing what was coming next. “Guess what!”
Miss Penney knew Cady well, and she put her finger to her lips to shush her. “There is a time for everything, Cady. And now isn’t the time for sharing your news.”
Daisy heaved a sigh of relief. Perhaps Cady would not have the chance to blurt the news about her mother’s visit to the class. She knew all too well the cruelty that would result. The laughter. The giggles. The wide-eyed curiosity. Not many mothers ventured on the school grounds unless it was to bring a lunch pail that a child forgot, or even less often, to bring fresh-baked cookies on a child’s birthday. Not many people in Red Bud could afford such a birthday luxury, and Daisy could count the times on one hand that such a happening had taken place. Certainly, it had never happened to her or her brothers and sisters.
She marched into the schoolhouse with the other children, and only once—just before she stepped inside—did she venture a look back to the music room. But it did her no good. The door was shut. She could only imagine the scolding her mother was giving poor Mister Taggart.
She entered the room and slipped obediently into her chair. She folded her hands and, biting her lip, waited to see what would happen next. Suddenly, an idea came to her and she shot her hand into the air. “Ciphering,” she almost shouted. “Let’s do ciphering next.”
Miss Penney had just taken her place near her desk, right in front of the blackboard. She smiled at Daisy, that puzzled frown creasing her brow again. “It’s our reading time, Daisy. We will get to our multiplication tables just before lunchtime.”
In the row beside her, Cady bounced up and down in her chair, making it squeak, and her hand waved in the air. “But-but-but,” she stammered in her excitement, “you said you would give me time to tell you my news. Can I now?”
The other children joined in, all talking at once. Miss Penney laughed, holding up one hand. “This must be something of great importance. Everyone, quiet down now, and we’ll let Cady tell us what it is.”
The room fell silent, and Daisy felt tears puddle in her bottom lids. She dropped her head to her desk so nobody would see her cry. Her heart stopped as Cady began to talk.
“Well, now,” Cady said with a sense of importance. “Me and my best friends Daisy and Wren have a secret. And Daisy’s mama is in on it. That’s why she came today. It was all, well, all part of the plan.”
“My best friends and I,” Miss Penney corrected as confused glances were exchanged among the children who had been in the music room.
“My best friends and I have a secret, then,” Cady said sweetly.
Immediately the room buzzed with curious chatter, and it seemed the awful scene in the music room was forgotten. Daisy drew in a deep breath and shot Cady a look of gratitude.
Cady grinned back at her as Daisy dried her tears. Over Cady’s shoulder Wren beamed with approval.
Percival watched the anger fade to dismay, then to anguish, in the face of the woman in front of him.
“What you’ve done to our children is unforgivable. You’ve filled their heads with false hope.” Her voice was low, overflowing with sorrow. “You have no right to plant your grand and glorious beliefs in their poor heads, making them think that life will better for them someday.” She pushed back a string of limp hair with a bony hand. A hand that was created for music. He imagined her hand if her circumstances were different—slender, with tapered fingers, they would strum a harp or perhaps travel up the keys of a piano, a cuff of Irish lace or a bracelet of pearls around her wrist.
Abigail James’s clothes were clean, though worn thin and patched in places. They were no different than those covering the thin frames of the other women in town. Likely she had never seen a length of lace, let alone a strand of pearls.
As though sensing his scrutiny, her cheeks turned pink. “I suppose you’re lookin’ down on me now?” She glanced down at her homespun skirt, and her lip curled. “I suppose now you’ve got religion, the rest of us aren’t good enough for you? You think we’re not good enough to raise our children proper? Teach them the Golden Rule?” She stepped closer, the anger sparking again in her eyes. “Is that why you’ve taken over, Mister Taggart?”
“Missus James—” he kept his tone calm, standing his ground—“I have done nothing of the sort. The families in Red Bud are good folks. I would argue with no one over that fact. But you must understand, the children ask me questions about life, about the unseen world. I’m merely answering their questions—and there are so many—as best I can. I don’t have answers to all their questions.” He shook his head and laughed softly. “Why, I don’t even have answers to my own questions. But when they ask me, I tell them what I know.”
“About God.”
“Yes, sometimes.”
“About angels.”
“Your little Daisy doesn’t seem able to put that subject to rest.”
At the mention of her daughter’s name, Abigail James’s expression softened. “I reckon what you say is true.” Then she frowned. “But if you would stop filling her mind with such nonsense, maybe then she could put it to rest.”
For a moment Percival did not speak. “She’s just a child. Doesn’t her imagination have the right to take wing?” Especially if those images in her heart are based on truth, not merely fairy tales?
“Daisy’s heart will only be stomped on later. I aim to protect her from that—even if it means taking on everyone who crosses her path and dares her to dream. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect her.”
“Such as getting me fired.”
“That’s my intent. I came here to warn you.”
“Warn me or bargain with me?”
She stared at him without answering.
“If I stop speaking of the things in my heart, you’ll not get me fired. Is that the bargain you came here to make?” He thought of Daisy’s dream, her wide-eyed excitement over the play she had written.… For all her good intentions, Abigail James was about to crush her daughter’s heart, to stomp on it as surely as those she swore to protect Daisy from would ever do. He considered telling the woman about Daisy’s secret, but the story wasn’t his to tell.
Besides, Missus James would likely blame him for placing such a notion in her daughter’s head in the first place.
“If you call this a bargain instead of a warning, that’s okay by me,” Abigail James said, turning to leave. The baby fussed, and she soothed the little, downy head with her fingers and palm, cupping it tenderly and stroking the child’s hair. The gesture was incongruous compared to the woman’s harsh words. “You quit filling my children’s h
eads with folderol, and I’ll keep my mouth shut about why I think a drunkard is unfit to teach my child anything.”
His breath expelled, almost as if he had been socked in the stomach. “I-I’m reformed,” he managed after a moment, but the curl of her lip told him she did not believe a word of it.
“Reformed?” She laughed softly, shaking her head. “My father reformed himself more times than I can count. Promised my ma every Sunday that things would be different. Every Saturday night his newfangled and reformed life ended up in the gutter, and his paycheck—which was supposed to feed his family—ended up in a saloonkeeper’s pocket.” She laughed again, this time harshly. “That’s only a portion of what I know about being reformed, Mister Taggart. I could tell you plenty more, but I’m sure you know firsthand what I’m talkin’ about.”
He had no defense, so did not answer. The difference between him and her father likely was not much. He drew in a deep breath as he considered her offer. This job was all he had left, all that provided him a means of support. And a small measure of dignity.
The importance of his work hit him full force. Even at his worst moments, when the slide into the gutter on a Saturday night seemed to kill everything good in his heart, it was the thought of teaching music on Monday morning that kept him going through another week.
Since last summer, when he felt God’s touch as never before, when he’d promised he would not let liquor pass his lips again, he had considered his job at Red Bud school a gift for the least-deserving of the heavenly Father’s creatures: Percival Taggart, town drunk. Redeemed, indeed… but oh, so fragile of flesh and spirit. His job was a gift that kept him on the straight and narrow. He couldn’t give it up now. He knew too well the consequences.
He met Abigail James’s cold stare. “If you want me to remain silent about these things, I shall do so, Missus James.”
“Including those tall tales of God stooping down to rescue His children?” Her words were laced with sarcasm. “Or tales of other heavenly bodies, including angels?”
“I will remain silent.”
Her smile was quick and triumphant. “I thought you’d see it my way, Mister Taggart.”
The door behind them opened, and a worried-looking Miss Penney burst into the room. “One of the children reported hearing raised voices just now. If there’s been an altercation…” She looked first to Percival, then moved her gaze to Abigail James, who smiled and shook her head.
“No, ma’am. No altercation at all. Me and Mister Taggart just had some things to straighten out, that’s all. Isn’t that right, Mister Taggart?” She shot him a conspiratorial glance. “Isn’t it, now?”
Miss Penney did not look convinced. “The children said you rushed in here at the end of the music lesson—”
Abigail James held up a hand to stop Miss Penney, and then, squaring her thin shoulders, she looked to Percival. “It was a misunderstanding, that’s all. But we’ve straightened it out.”
“Yes—” Percival shifted his gaze uncomfortably—“we have.”
Missus James headed to the door, the baby propped on one hip, then hesitated and turned to look at Miss Penney. “You can tell the children that everything is fine. We’ve truly cleared up our differences.”
After the two women left, Percival turned to collect the music from the children’s lesson. Slowly he stacked the sheets and dropped them into the piano bench. He moved around the room, folding the music stands and carrying them to the corner of the room. When all was straightened and ready for the next lesson, he dropped to the piano bench.
For a long while he sat there, his head in his hands, his fingers stretching into his thin hair. He longed for a drink of whiskey… the desire for it grew until it occupied every sensation in his body, every thought in every crevice of his brain.
“Oh, God… help me…”
Then his gaze fell on the small piece of paper that Daisy had thrust into his hand earlier. He picked it up. The title, scrawled in a childish hand, read Come, My Little Angel. Beneath the title, she had printed the words:
Mister Taggart,
This is the song for my drama show. It is about the legend of the littlest angel a little boy who dies and goes to heaven and does not have a gift for the newborn Christ child. Here are the words I wrote so far for my song:
Come, my littlest angel,
Is your hallo on strait?
Boy with a robin’s egg
With a butterfly’s wing
With two shining stones.
And a hank of puppy hair.
Well, that’s all I have got for now. Maybe you can think of some other words to go with these.
Your friend,
Daisy
P.S. If you think these are queer words for a song, it’s because these are the greatest treasures the little angel has. His most-precious-ever possessions. ’Cause he’s just a little boy who’s come to heaven unexpected like and it’s all he has to give the newborned king.
Still supporting his head with one hand, Percival let his opposite hand fall to the piano keys. He brushed them with the pads of his fingers, enjoying the feel of the worn ivories. He played a few chords, mouthing the words to the song. His fingers seemed to move on their own, as if they already knew his heart.
A melody, childlike and sweet, filled his mind. His thoughts calmed as the beauty of the music echoed through the room. He straightened his back and squared his shoulders, frowning in concentration.
He hummed the words, surprised at how beautifully the simple lyrics written by a child fit to the music.
Come, my little angel,
Is your halo on straight?
Boy of one bird egg…
Of a butterfly…
Two shining stones…
Some puppy hair.
Smiling, he added a music-box countermelody to the tune. Words came to him, for the second verse, then a third. He could almost hear the children singing—the angel choir Daisy had dreamed would sing as they performed her play.
He called to mind the legend she spoke of, that of the child who died. And he pictured this child—the same who would become the littlest angel—standing in the center of the stage, clutching his small box of earthly treasures, embarrassed at his humble gift.
“What do I have that’s fit for the King?” the child-angel would ask.
Scribbling notes as fast as the images came to him, Percival pictured the small angel’s costume, the crooked halo, the torn and tattered robe. This little one would be pushed away by the other angels who were busy with preparations for the Christ child’s birth. He would be prone to mischief, always in trouble with the majestic and awesome angels and archangels. This one would long to return to earth because he didn’t fit in.
Percival put down his pencil and let his fingers again travel over the keys as his mind flooded with music, heavenly music.
He closed his eyes and sang again. “Come, my little angel…”
“Mister Taggart.”
He opened his eyes and turned at the small voice behind him. Somehow he was not at all surprised to see Daisy James.
“Is that my song?” Her face glowed with pleasure. “ ‘Come, my little angel’?” Her words rushed out in an awe-filled whisper. “Is that it? Is it? Oh, please, Mister Taggart, play it again!”
He lifted his hands to the keys, the wonder of the melody still fresh. “Listen—” he said, then halted.
The image of her mother’s face shoved the beautiful lyrics and tune from his mind. The promise he had made crushed the wonder.
With a heavy sigh, he turned to the child and frowned as he closed the keyboard cover. “No, it wasn’t your song. You heard wrong. I was just fiddling around. That’s all. The words you wrote… well, they just don’t fit to music.”
Daisy’s bottom lip trembled. “They don’t?”
He stared into her face, the consequence of what he’d just said hitting him full force. He’d raised her hopes by playing her song, then dashed them again within a few bea
ts of her heart. Why hadn’t he been more careful?
He placed her scribbled note in her hands.
“Isn’t it any good?” she whispered.
He swallowed hard, wishing for courage he did not have. “It is good,” he said after a moment. “Very good.” It was the best he could do.
She looked up at him, large tears threatening to spill over her bottom eyelids. “Then why…?”
“There’s just no music fine enough to go with such wonderful words.”
She was not fooled by his attempt to soothe her feelings. “So we can’t do my drama show?”
“No.” He thought his heart might twist in two at the look on her sweet face. “No, we can’t.”
“Because you don’t want to help us, do you?”
For a moment he did not answer. The only sound was the soft wail of a breeze through the pines outside the music room. “No,” he finally said. “I don’t.”
And with those few words, something inside him died as surely as the hope in Daisy’s eyes.
WREN AND CADY were sucking on sticks of horehound candy as they waited for Daisy on the wooden porch of the mercantile. It was not a place they were allowed to loiter, and they perked up considerably as she marched across the town square and stood in front of them.
“What happened?” Cady’s eyes were wide, though Daisy figured it was more from curiosity than concern. Cady played with the tip of a springy red curl while she waited for Daisy’s answer.
“Mister Taggart said he can’t help us. I can’t help thinking it’s about what Ma said to him—” she shrugged—“though I can’t figure out what truck she has with it all.” Her heart nearly broke. How could her own ma be behind Mister Taggart’s change of mind?
Then she told them about the music Mister Taggart had played to the words she wrote. “It was beautiful. Truly like the music the stars sang together when God created the world.”
“Sing it for us.” Wren pushed up her eyeglasses, looking wise and in charge. She grabbed the hands of the other two girls, and they headed along Main Street to the path through the pines leading to their homes. Daisy hummed the tune she had heard to the best of her memory.
