Noah Faye

I was sitting in the front room. Mama said I was brooding but I wasn’t. I was trying to decide whether it was all right to practice my piano lesson. I weighed the pros and cons. Aunt Sarah had finished her nap. So had the baby. Mama’s story wasn’t on yet. I didn’t think my playing would disturb anyone. I loved playing the piano more than almost anything. Noah Faye said I had a natural ear. She was teaching me how to play the piano for free.

Every Saturday morning Noah Faye came to Uncle Benjamin’s house to give Kate piano lessons. I sat in the music room carefully watching the lesson. When I got home I tried to play the songs on our piano. Even though our piano was old, it was kept in pretty good tune because they used it when there were baptisms at Foreman’s Landing.

Noah Faye had confided to me that my cousin had no talent at all. “She just doesn’t have an ear. It might have something to do with that brain tumor she had. You know about the tumor, don’t you?” I nodded my head. “Well it doesn’t make any sense to drive all the way from Swanquarter just to teach a rich, tone deaf girl the same lesson over and over again. What do you say I give you a lesson while I’m here?” That’s how the lessons started. In no time at all I had mastered music that Kate couldn’t even begin to play and had even started to write music of my own. I told Noah Faye about the song I was writing for my Aunt Pearl. “When she comes to see me I am going to play it for her. Ivy is going to sing the words because I can’t sing and play at the same time.” Noah Faye laughed and hugged me. “You are an amazing child, Clara.”