The Piano comes to America-part 8

The Piano comes to America-part 8

fiction
edward w pritchard


Jake Miers, [Sharp] a widowed woman, sat at the piano at the old family farm in Dover, Ohio and played the piano softly for her mourning grand daughter. The Grand daughter Mrs. Rodrigez clutched the crumbled letter in her left hand and aggressively pushed her forehead against the music holder of the ancient piano.

In the kitchen other family members talked quietly as the women cooked. The men nervously paced throughout the house trying to make sense of the death of their kinsman.

After about 15 minutes Olive, Mrs. Rodrigez very carefully uncrumpled the letter and went over to the sofa and read the letter to her blind Father Tatum Jones.

Mr. Jones put his arm around his daughter's shoulder as she read: Tatum's Mother-in -law Jake continued to play The Old Rugged Cross.

The letter:
Mrs. Rodrigez,
We regret to inform you that your beloved husband Carlson Rodrigez died suddenly in a non-theater of war incident near Ypres France on October 18, 1917. On behalf of President Wilson please accept your Country's deepest sympathy and eternal gratitude.
Secretary of War

Olive stopped reading and stood next to her Grand Mother and began to sing picking up the second verse of the Old Rugged Cross a popular song written a few years ago.
The family quickly filled the small parlor as cousins brothers and uncles and Aunts joined in.

End