7

Manda sat on her bed and buckled her shoes. Her hike up Spare Mountain had had the desired effect on the two-piece wooden soles. They were nicely scuffed. She gathered her skirts in both hands and practiced a few clogging steps.

“You’re pretty as a picture,” her sister-in-law Cara said, holding a brush aloft. “Sit here at the dresser and let me do your hair.”

“Yours looks good,” Manda said. “I like it piled on top of your head like that.”

Cara tucked a flyaway strand of plain brown hair behind her ear. “I’d give anything for a head of hair like yours, so thick and shiny.” She expertly braided one thick plait, starting at the crown of Manda’s head. “And such a pretty gold color. Hand me that comb.” Cara stepped back and tilted her head, looking Manda over. “Perfect. You won’t be able to shake that loose no matter how much you dance.”

Manda held a silver-backed hand mirror behind her head and peered into the dresser’s looking glass. “I just hope there’s somebody to dance with.”

“Isn’t Gurney going?”

Manda put the mirror on the dresser. “I meant somebody different. Somebody exciting.”

“So Gurney Jasper’s not giving you a thrill?” Cara teased.

Manda opened the dresser drawer and took out a small pot of rouge. She tapped the powder with her forefinger, then rubbed the apples of her cheeks. “Gurney’s boring as yesterday’s news. He’s so predictable. Want some?” she asked, holding out the rouge.

“Predictable can be good.” Cara leaned in behind her, patted color with the tips of two fingers, and glanced at her own reflection. “Gracious, I look like a clown.”

“Let me.” Manda wiped half the color from Cara’s cheeks with a piece of cotton wool before she mixed a bit of rouge with petroleum jelly and applied it to Cara’s lips. “There, now you’ve got a touch of color.”

“How do you know how to do this?” Cara asked. “I can never get it right. So I usually don’t bother.”

“I read all of Miz Copper’s magazines. They have a wealth of knowledge.”

“You sound so worldly.”

Manda picked up the hand mirror and did her lips, then blotted them. “Don’t you ever long for something else? somewhere else? maybe even somebody else?”

“Manda!”

Manda turned on the dresser bench to face Cara. “Oh, don’t get exercised. I know you’re true to Dimmert. But don’t you ever get tired of the same old, same old?”

“Scoot,” Cara said, sliding onto the bench and sitting shoulder to shoulder with Manda. “The love of a good man is a gift from heaven. You should give Gurney a chance.”

“I want sparks. Shouldn’t there be sparks?”

Cara laughed. “Has Gurney stolen a kiss yet?”

Manda rolled her eyes. “Well, no, and he’d better not, either.”

“Then how do you know there won’t be sparks? He just might surprise you.” Cara twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “I didn’t especially warm up to Dimm until that first kiss. His passion for me led to my passion for him.”

“You’re ruining your hair,” Manda said, smoothing a bit of pomade into Cara’s wispy locks. “Did you ever kiss anybody but Dimmert?”

“No.” Cara stood and smoothed her skirts. “And I’ve never wanted to.”

“So you think I should let Gurney kiss me tonight?” Manda asked with a last look in the mirror and a last pat to her hair.

“Kisses shouldn’t be planned for. You have to let them come naturally.”

“I don’t know about that. If Gurney had any get-up about him, I believe he would have already tried.”

Cara smiled and shook her head. “Manda, Manda. Be careful lest you get rain up your nose.”

Manda answered with more clogging steps. “Let’s go. I’d rather dance than eat fried chicken on Sunday.”

“Speaking of which,” Cara said, “don’t forget your box supper.”

* * *

The thump of dance music met them a mile away. Lilly clapped and snuggled closer to Manda. They were sitting on the back of the wagon with their legs dangling over the edge. Every time the wagon hit a bump, Lilly squealed.

Cara looked back at them from her place on the wagon’s bench between Dimmert and her little niece Merky. “You hold her tight, Manda.”

Manda gave Lilly a little shove. “I was thinking of flinging her out onto the roadside.”

Lilly giggled. “You’re ever so much fun. I’m so glad Mama let me come.”

“Just you remember to stay close to me or Cara. Don’t go wandering off by yourself.”

“Mama’s already given me that speech,” Lilly said. “I’ll be watching Merky anyway.”

“That will keep you out of trouble for sure,” Manda said. “Merky’s a live wire.”

The wagon hit a hole in the roadbed. Lilly bounced. Manda’s encircling arm kept her safely seated.

“You know, Manda, I’m good with children.”

Manda chuckled. Lilly was such a serious child. “You are that.”

As soon as they got inside the schoolhouse, Manda let the crowd swallow her up. Lilly would be fine with the rest of the Whitt family. Dance and Ace and their passel of kids had come also. She wouldn’t spend much time with them. She and Dance were never close. Dance was way older than Manda, and she never seemed to warm up to Manda. Truthfully, all Manda really liked about her sister was her name. Why couldn’t she have been named Dance instead of Dory?

The crowd was thick on the dance floor and lined two or three deep along the walls. Box suppers and dances always brought people from all over. It was a good way to meet new folks. Manda’s feet twitched to the music as she elbowed over to the maids’ table with her decorated pasteboard box chock-full of fried chicken, potato salad, and dried apple pie. The table was dubbed the young maids’ table to keep from hurting feelings. Only eligible women participated in the box auction—young maids verging on being old maids like Manda. Wives and mothers brought food for their families. But maybe if the right person bid on her box tonight, this would be her last year at the spinsters’ table. Manda was ever hopeful.

The auctioneer stood behind the table, picking his teeth with a broom straw and lifting one box lid after another. “What you got there, Miss Manda?” he asked. As soon as she put her supper on the table, he pried the corner up. “Well, well, fried chicken and still warm.” The broom straw bobbed in the corner of his mouth. “I just might have to save this one for last and bid on it myself.”

Manda cringed. Joe Little must be forty years old, and he was bald to boot. Not to mention he was a widower with eight kids. Manda didn’t aim to take on that job. From the corner of her eye, she saw a boy sidle up to a second table, where delicious-looking cakes waited for the cakewalk. She watched as the boy ran his finger around the bottom of a caramel-iced confection. When he saw Manda watching, he popped his finger into his mouth and walked away.

“Better mind the cakes, Mr. Little,” she said.

A tap on her shoulder and she was waltzed away by Gurney. “You sure look nice, Manda,” he said.

Nice? she thought. Sisters looked nice. Mothers looked nice. Even grandmothers looked nice. Manda wanted to be beautiful—or at the very least pretty. She held her body stiffly in Gurney’s arms. He didn’t seem to notice.

Dimmert and Cara danced by. Cara raised her eyebrows.

Manda shook her head in answer. No, no sparks yet.

“What?” Gurney asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Not a thing,” Manda snapped.

“I can’t wait until the auction,” he said. “My belly’s rumbling for your dried apple pie.”

The song ended, and one of the musicians stepped forward, teasing a fast tune from his fiddle. Gurney turned to face the crowd and started clogging, heel-toe, heel-toe, emphasizing the downbeat of the music. Soon other folks fell in until a line stretched clear across the room. Some danced with eyes closed, and some slapped their knees in perfect time, energized by the percussive rhythm.

Manda’s feet started up a little jig. It was hard to ignore the music. Gurney smiled and ran a set around her, his knees bent, his arms folded behind his back. Swishing her skirts, she matched him fancy step for fancy step. The other cloggers fell out until it was just she and Gurney facing each other, performing the time-honored dance to whoops and whistles from the crowd.

The fiddler rocked the bow, burning up the strings. Gurney leaned in as if to steal a kiss. She leaned back. The crowd roared with laughter. Manda loved it. She could dance all night.

It was over Gurney’s shoulder she first noticed the musician. He was a middling sort of guy—middling height, middling weight, and brown hair, nothing special except for his eyes, which were locked on her. She looked away and then looked back. He never broke his stare. Flustered, she lost a step.

Laughing, Gurney caught her hand. Wild applause broke out. Manda and Gurney bowed like actors on a stage.

The mood of the crowd shifted abruptly when the middling man took up a small, slender, three-stringed music box and strummed it like a guitar. The other pickers stood silently behind him. Nobody danced to the strains of “Pretty Polly.” Most just stood in place and swayed in time to the middling man’s high, lonesome voice. He sang of a girl murdered by her faithless boyfriend, an innocent girl who now lay silent in her grave with only the wild wind for comfort.

Gurney chanced to slide an arm around her shoulders. She wished he wouldn’t.

The middling man closed his eyes as if his song were a prayer. His voice was pure as an angel’s. When he finished, nobody clapped or hooted or hollered. Many women dabbed at their eyes, and several men cleared their throats. Manda was mesmerized. She didn’t notice when Gurney took his arm away.

The auctioneer broke the spell when he called for the auctioning of the maids’ boxes.

The musicians leaned their instruments against the wall. Two men stepped off the stage and headed for the door. The middling man rolled a cigarette.

Lilly and Jay, Dance’s eldest son, appeared at Manda’s side. They were going to eat with her and whoever bid the most for her box supper.

The children clutched at her, pulling her toward the maids’ table. Manda looked over her shoulder and saw the middling man strike a match on the sole of his shoe to light his smoke. He squinted with his first puff. Was he still looking at her? Her hands trembled inside the children’s clasp. What if he bought her box? Her heart skipped a beat.

“Aunt Manda,” Jay said, “look, the auctioneer’s holding up your parcel. Reckon who will buy it?”

“Everybody knows Gurney Jasper will,” Lilly said. “He’s Manda’s beau. Right, Manda?”

Manda didn’t answer.

When the auctioneer called for bids on her supper, nary a soul bid against Gurney. After he claimed his prize, Gurney selected one of the school desks pushed up against the back wall and spread the supper across its top. Lilly and Jay took a chicken leg each. Gurney smiled so big that mustard-style potato salad spilled from the corner of his mouth. Manda handed him one of the red- and white-checked napkins she’d ironed this morning. He wiped his mouth on one corner.

“This here will put a man in hog heaven,” Gurney said.

Manda split a biscuit for the children. “I’m glad you like it.”

“What’s not to like? Say, you ain’t et a bite.”

Manda’s emotions churned like the butter she spread on the biscuit. She couldn’t wait for the music to resume. All she wanted was to watch the middling man again.

When they had finished supper, Cara came over and claimed the children. “Gurney asked permission from Dimmert to see you home,” she whispered in Manda’s ear. “Don’t worry about Lilly. I’ll take care of her. You have some fun.”

So she was supposed to jump at the chance to ride home with Gurney? It was just taken for granted? Says who? Then again, Dimmert and Cara were likely to leave earlier than Gurney. If she let him take her home, she could stay until the very end of the dance like the other young folks would do. This could work in her favor. “Thanks,” she said.

“Sounds like they’re starting the cakewalk,” Cara said with a tinge of excitement. “I hope my chocolate cake brings a lot of money. I think the school board’s buying maps of the world for the students with the proceeds.” She squeezed Manda’s shoulder. “See you later.”

Manda always enjoyed cakewalks. It was lots of fun watching.

Gurney nudged her. “See that cake at the end of the table? The widow Sparrow always brings one.”

“It looks like a fruitcake,” Manda said.

“It is a Christmas cake—leftover that is. One year my pa bid on it out of kindness. We used it for a doorstop.”

Manda laughed. “You did not.”

Gurney held his right hand aloft. “Upon my honor.”

After several rounds of heavy bidding on all manner of confections, Mrs. Sparrow’s doorstop cake was the only one remaining. Manda was interested to see what would happen. Who would take pity on the poor widow this time?

Joe Little looked at the cake. He looked at Mrs. Sparrow. “I believe I’ll buy this one myself,” he said, bringing his gavel down with a smack.

Soon Mrs. Sparrow will be baking cakes for a passel of young’uns, Manda surmised. Better her than me.

The fun picked up as the evening progressed. By nine o’clock most of the families with children had gone and many of the old folks as well. Manda danced every dance. She had no idea there were so many unattached men around. It would be better if Gurney would stop cutting in, but he wasn’t a man to take a hint. She didn’t mind too much though, for Gurney was easy to maneuver toward the stage, which was where she really wanted to be. If it was true you could talk with your eyes, then she was talking, and by all accounts the middling man was listening.

An hour later, the last dance—a slow, sweet waltz—was announced. Gurney pulled her into a tight embrace. She didn’t protest but laid her head on his shoulder and let him be her guide. She had never been this close to a grown man before. An odd sense of power, her power over him, startled her and she pulled back a bit. Was this strange feeling the “feminine wiles” she read about in the ladies’ magazines? If so, she needed to be careful lest she entice Gurney. She’d read about that too—enticing. It could get you into trouble and ruin your reputation quick as a cat’s sneeze.

Besides, she didn’t want to waste those wiles. The magazine didn’t say how long they lasted, and she might want to try them out again sometime—say on the middling man.