The girl was small; almost as small as Piety. The first time Lant swung her in the square-dance, he was astonished at her lightness. When he passed her again, he said to her, "Must be you don't weigh no more'n a full-growed field-lark." She looked at him gravely and dropped her eyes.
He danced fiercely, all arms and legs, like a jack-on-the-stick. His shaggy forelock dangled between his eyes. His blue shirt stuck to his back where the sweat had moistened it. He was lean and ugly and virile, and the girls cut their eyes at him and pushed him impudently. Lottie Hobkirk said, "Lant Jacklin, I jest as soon be swung by a pole, as you." He grinned in answer, amiably enough.
At the end of the set he saw the small light girl go to the long bench above the fiddlers' platform. The boy with her asked a question. She shook her head and the boy went outside where some of the young bloods were wrestling and tumbling. Lant walked to the bench. He discovered himself sitting by the girl as though he had walked there in his sleep. He had nothing to say and was sorry he had come. Her hands were folded in her lap. She looked straight ahead. When he saw that she was not looking at him, Lant turned furtively to watch her. He decided that he had thought of a field-lark because her hair was the tawny yellow of the bird's throat. It was drawn back over her ears and it looked soft and ruffled like feathers. Something about the pointed chin was like the neatness of a lark's bill. She looked frightened. He shuffled his feet.
He was conscious that someone had crossed the platform and was sitting on the other side of him. He turned quickly. Kezzy was looking at him curiously. He was relieved. She put a hand on his bony knee.
"Now I want to know what put it in your head to come to the frolic," she said. "Cleve and the baby and me come in the door jest now and I says to Cleve, 'Cleve, I wouldn't be no more surprised to see a cattymount settin' up there behind the fiddlers.'"
"Nobody but you kin dance and carry on, I reckon."
He tried to remember what had been in his mind when he left the scrub. The buff-headed girl left the bench and slipped along the wall to the far end of the dance hall. He was depressed again.
"I jest takened the notion to hear somebody's music besides my own." He remembered. "Red's done dead," he said.
"The pore ol' feller—" She sat silent a moment. "You didn't bring Ardis to the dance, then?"
"I didn't carry nobody."
"I figgered you was together until I noticed you wa'n't talkin' to her."
He craned his long neck to look down the room. Kerosene lamps flickered high on the walls and obscured the room beyond. He was aware that Kezzy was asking him a question. He turned blankly. She looked at him thoughtfully. She smiled a little. She rose and rested her hand an instant on his shoulder and went across the room where Cleve had turned the baby over to the older women. Mrs. Kinsley puffed to the platform.
"I got your quarter yet?" she asked cheerfully.
"You shore ain't. I was about figgerin' on dancin' free."
He was alone above the fiddlers. Old man Lonny Sours tuned up and tried out the melody. The next set was forming. The floor was crowded. Cleve and Kezzy stood hand in hand below him. Kezzy whistled quickly to catch his attention. She jerked her head towards the group of girls and women at the other end of the hall.
She whispered to him across the fiddlers, "She's got nobody with her, Lant."
The caller and his partner came in the door and took their places in the circle. Lant hurried from the bench and past the waiting dancers. The girl stood between two old women. He held out his hand to her and she put hers in it.
He said, "We got to hurry. We 'bout to git left."
He was conscious of her hand. He held it as carefully as he had held the young quail in the afternoon. The tune was "Sally Good Un." Its liveliness tempted him to gallop, but he tried to tone down his pace. Swinging her, the girl seemed fragile. He was afraid of snapping her to pieces. He breathed easily again when he passed and swung Kezzy. Her solidity was comforting. He heaved her towards him so that her feet flew up behind her. Her breasts were hard and full against him.
When the set was ended he took the girl's arm and led her to the bench. He leaned over and asked, "You want a dope?" She nodded. He whistled shrilly to the Kinsley boy and fished in his pocket for a dime for the two bottles of Coca-Cola. She sucked at her bottle slowly and daintily. He watched her steadily. She looked out over the room or down into her lap, tracing the pattern in her dress with one finger. Suddenly he imitated the distant chattering of a squirrel. One of the fiddlers turned to look and the girl opened her eyes wide and full at Lant. They were grey-blue, with long lashes. He laughed loudly.
"You better look at me," he said. "I been studyin', if I couldn't git you to look at me, how'd you know me agin?"
She said, "I know you. You're Lant Jacklin."
He said, "You got a tongue, too. I'd 'bout figgered I'd takened up with a dumbie."
She dropped her eyes. Girls usually tormented him, trying to make him talk. It delighted him to be tormenting her.
He said, "You keep on, you'll purty near tell me somethin'."
She said, "You live in the scrub."
He laughed and nodded.
"If they wa'n't so many folks around," he said, "I'd show you how a panther screams. It scares folks," he added, "if they ain't expectin' it."
Her eyes were wide again.
"Are there many panthers there?"
"Mighty few. They keeps to theirselves mostly, over in the bay-head flats. You ain't never been across the river?"
She shook her head.
He said eagerly, "How'd you like to come go huntin' with me, time the season opens?"
She said, "I've never shot a gun."
He said disconsolately, "Well—" He studied her. "You so small and light," he said, "I reckon you couldn't scarcely tote a gun." He remembered his mother, lifting a gun almost as long as her body. "You could too, by God," he said fervently. "Your shoulders is slopin' and narrer—you'd need a lot o' drop in a gun-stock. A .410 is what you want, or a .22 rifle, with a short stock and plenty o' drop."
She said, "I like to fish."
"I bet your wrist is good and limber for castin'."
"I don't mean casting. My father fishes that way. I mean, with a pole."
"Oh—nigger fishin'." He brightened. "That's the onliest way to ketch bait for set lines. It's a trick now, to ketch very small bream with them leetle pin hooks."
They fell silent. The sets were called and danced and ended; called and danced again. People were going home. He was amazed that the dance was over. The girl slid from the bench and went to the door.
She said to him over her shoulder, "Good-bye."
She disappeared into the darkness. Panic swept him. He jumped from the fiddlers' platform to the floor and followed after her. She had joined a group of women. He pulled at her sleeve.
He said hoarsely, "Ardis! How 'bout you comin' to the next frolic? I'm comin' if you'll come. You meet me here?"
She said, "Yes."