“Well, anyway. Then we landed here. Sort of cramped my style, at first, but then I figured that I could hitch a ride on the carts going off to markets and I started bumming. In the beginning, all I could do was instrumentals. A guy can’t sing with a fiddle under his chin. Sometimes, I’d put the fiddle down for a couple of minutes and do a verse. That went over okay, I guess. But I knew it would be better if folks could understand the words.”
The old man had ordered a kettle of boiling water for a beverage, and had dropped some odd dried roots into it. He poured some of it out into a mug and rinsed his mouth.
“Sassafras tea, if you’re wondering. I told you I was brought up teetotal. Still am. Want to try some?”
Cavriani had consumed stranger things when he was doing his training in the firm’s various branch offices. His digestive system still remembered Aleppo well. “Aendere Laender, aendere Sitten,” he murmured. “How did the Americans say it? ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do.'”
He nodded. Benny poured three mugs and gave the third to Minnie before continuing.
“At first, I just did the towns and villages around Grantville. After about a year, I guess, I worked myself all the way up to Magdeburg, mostly playing one night stands—stayed a little longer in Erfurt when I passed through. Well, anyway. In Magdeburg, I met this kid who’s a friend of Jeff Higgins’ wife. He writes poetry in German, and said that if I sang my stuff for them, he had a friend who would copy it into sheet music. I could sell that, and make a bit more. And he’d translate the words of some of them into German for me, free. Real nice of him, I thought. He did three that first trip, but every time I run across him, he’s done a couple more.”
Cavriani nodded. His face showed genuine interest. Benny loved an audience.
“I didn’t do so good at singing the German words, but most people didn’t care. At least, they got the idea. Then I found Minnie. She can really sing them. He brought four new ones for me when he came down for this foofara. So he’s the one you want to talk to, I guess. Name’s Joachim. Let me write it down—they spell it like that, but they say it just like Yokum in the L’il Abner cartoons.”
Benny was starting to wind down. His hands met behind his neck and he pushed his elbows and shoulders back.
“Well, Mr. Cavriani, I must say that it’s been a pleasure. I do thank you for the invitation. But I’m getting to be old bones. If I’m going to polish up “The Romish Lady” before tomorrow, we’d better be going.”
“The pleasure was all mine,” said Leopold Cavriani. He meant it. Sincerely.
* * *
It was Benny’s favorite hymnbook. His grandma had a whole stack of them, bound in red oilcloth covers. Apostolic Hymns. A Collection of Hymns and Tunes for all Occasions of Religious Worship and Social Singing. Containing Selections of Upward of Fifty Ministers, Music Teachers, and Singers. And a Comprehensive Gamut by Prof. Blackburn, Pilot Oak, Ky., edited by Elds. J. V. And R. S. Kirkland, Fulton, Ky., Assisted by Prof. A. M. Kirkland, Como, Tenn. J. V. & R. S. Kirkland, Fulton, Ky. Copyright 1898. It was thin enough to fit in the larger bib pocket of his overalls. Whenever he felt like Mother Maybelle’s “Lonesome Homesick Blues” were going to take him over, he pulled it out to remember the sing-alongs they used to have.
Funny how things worked out. He had a brother and two sisters. He and Mary Ann never had any kids. Emmie and Lester never had any kids; Lester had been dead for years and he didn’t think that Emmie would last much longer—she was the oldest. Homer and Hattie’s kids had been left up-time; Hattie had died in ninety-eight and Homer sure wasn’t well. Betty and Fletcher had a boy and a girl, but then of those two, Louise and Bill didn’t have any kids and she wasn’t likely to have any now, being forty-three. One little baby. Betty’s great-grandson, Dave and Doreen’s grandson, born in February. Benny had been back to see him once, already. Suddenly, he decided. He was going back to Grantville to see that little buster again before he started his summer tour.