The Dulcimer in the Shop Window

I walked past a little music shop every day for six years on my way to the train. In the window, there was a mountain dulcimer, a long, narrow wooden instrument with a heart-shaped hole, that never seemed to sell.

In February, on a gray afternoon, I went in. The owner, an older man with a gray ponytail, took it down and put it in my lap. He showed me how to strum it with a feather quill and press the strings with a small wooden stick. "Three strings," he said. "Hard to play a wrong note."

He was right. Within ten minutes, I was playing "Go Tell Aunt Rhody," slowly and badly, and grinning like a child.

I bought it. He threw in a songbook and a free lesson every Saturday. I've been going for weeks now. Last Saturday, he got out his fiddle and we played "Shenandoah" together while the rain came down outside. His cat slept on the counter through the whole thing.