Listening, the audience nodded, their faces eager and bright as the tale was told. The play was the duplication of the natural process, a pantomiming of life itself, and it seemed to me that at heart these people were primitives, a clan of ancient lineage, plain and clear in their wants and needs.
Onstage the corn children had clustered together, and when they parted again, a stir went through the audience. The giant cornhusk now lay in the center of the stage. The papery skins rattled, moved, then parted altogether, and with a bound Jim Minerva sprang to his feet.
“Ho!” someone called as he popped up.
“Have’ee’t a new one!”
“New,” they whispered, nodding and applauding as Jim stepped to the footlights and bowed. Then the corn crown was set on his head, the plow was brought again, and when he put his hand to it a great shout went up, and people, rose to their feet while the curtains closed. When they opened again, the cast stood in a line, making the traditional stage bows; the curtains closed again, parted to reveal the principals. As Justin handed Sophie toward the footlights to curtsy, she stumbled slightly; a buzz went through the audience, but Justin set her safely, then raised her. Jim Minerva bowed again; then they all bowed to Robert, and Sophie brought him to center stage; Robert bowed, and the curtains closed for the last time, and the Corn Play was over.
Wasn’t it a fine show this year, they all said. I heard murmurs about Sophie’s having stumbled during her bow, but the rest had gone slick as a whistle.
When the chairs had once more been cleared to the sides of the hall, the dancing began. The orchestra played one or two standards to get people warmed up, and couples were moving out onto the floor a few at a time. Wondering if Beth wanted to dance, I looked around for her. The Widow was again speaking to Sophie, and nearby Mrs. Zalmon was showing Beth her latest quilt. I invited Kate instead, and led her onto the floor, but I could tell from her expression she wished I were Worthy instead, and I had trouble keeping from stepping on her feet.
The musicians swung into a plaintive waltz, and that went a little better. When Kate said she’d had enough, I took her to the sidelines and we watched the dancers. I saw Sophie Hooke go by in Justin’s arms, holding her long skirt out as he turned her, her head back and a little to one side, her hand resting lightly on his arm that held her, their bodies dipping to the lilt of the music. He was looking over the top of her head with a sober, grave expression, and I wondered if he was enjoying himself. Or if Sophie was, for that matter. She was gazing up at him with that yearning, bittersweet expression she had for him alone. Then I saw there were tears in her eyes. Yet, watching them, it seemed impossible that anything should really spoil the happiness of those two, and when next Justin turned her, I saw the tears were gone and she was smiling again.
When the band began a reel, I went to get Beth to come and watch. The lines were formed, gentlemen opposite ladies, bowing, changing from parallel progression to circle, the couples breaking up into fours, crossing over, making small circles, then spinning in the do-si-do. Never having seen an American country square dance before, I marveled at the dexterity and grace with which these farmer folk, so awkward and shuffling in the field, now executed the intricate patterns. There was Fred Minerva beaming, his heavy farmer’s shoes treading the lightest possible as he bowed to Edna Jones, linked arms, and spun her. There was the minister dancing with Mrs. Deming-where was Mr. Deming? — Will Jones with Maggie Dodd, Cyrus Perkin with Asia Minerva, the whole village mixed together in the community of dance.
When good ol’ Justin passed, the Widow beckoned him with her thimbled finger and he leaned while she spoke in his ear; then he threaded his way through the dancers to Beth, and drew her into the dance, laughing as she got confused in the steps and straightening her out again, handing her along to Morgan Thomas, who passed her to Merle Penrose, as up and down the floor they went. When Will Jones left the dance to join the drinkers, Maggie came laughing and breathless and took my hand and pulled me onto the floor. It was hot and the music was loud and I was drunk and enjoying it immensely. Good ol’ Maggie.
Then good ol’ Maggie was somehow suddenly replaced by good ol’ Tamar, who ended up the reel with me, and when the band began a slow number she was in my arms. Gliding around the floor, I felt quite the stepper, and for the first time that evening I wasn’t treading on someone’s feet. Good ol’ Tamar, she danced like a dream, and who could say anything if we were having one little dance together?
She danced closer than convention might have dictated, but it was hard keeping our bodies separated, they seemed to fit so naturally together. Good ol’ Tamar, with her Medusa’s curls and her red mouth, and her red fingernails sliding under my collar, and the smell of that perfume. Not saying anything, but just dancing, and I recall asking her if she’d cut in on Maggie. Yes, she said, she had. I asked if it was leap year and she said no, just ladies’ choice.
Then I saw good ol’ Beth sitting between the Widow and Mrs. Zee, and I decided we’d danced enough; I stopped and let go of her, but she wasn’t having any of that. She hung on me, laughing. Which, as any fool could plainly see, didn’t set too well with either Mrs. Zee or good ol’ Beth. I undid Tamar’s arms from around my neck and said she ought to cut in on Justin, ha-ha, and good ol’ Beth-there were two of her at this point-had put on her you’re-making-a-spectacle-of-yourself expression, so I guessed I’d go outside for some fresh air.
On the porch another jug had been produced. I took a pull, and they all whacked me, telling me what a good fellow I was turning out to be. And wasn’t that Tamar Penrose some hot stuff, and wouldn’t you know a sly chap like me would be getting some of that, and was
It was then the trouble began.
I was drunk, and knew it, but it didn’t seem to matter-lots of them were in similar condition-and with a last look at the clouds scuttling over the moon, casting rolling shadows along the deserted Common, I stumbled back inside, hearing the music-not the band we had been listening to, but something with a more exotic sound, the same kind we had heard on the night of the “experience,” and it was a pleasant sound, but I saw that none of the men were dancing now, only the women, barefooted, dancing in a circle, the floor strewn with fine grain laid in patterns with designs drawn in it, and Missy Penrose in the center of the dancing circle and what was she wearing- some sort of corn crown-and the women had joined hands as they moved around her in the circle-heads now raised joyfully, now bowed in contrition, now exultant again, backed by the syncopation of drum and tambourine and flute- for the fiddle was silent-with flex of knee and thrust of breast, graceful arms extending, lilting left and right with a sowing motion, the feet tracing patterns in the grain, brows glistening, and radiant Tamar, her Medusa’s locks winding, her woman’s body arching and dipping-I couldn’t take my eyes off her-writhing almost, her face ecstatic, transported, seeking and calling forth with pride and longing, the dance becoming a ritual, and I, uninitiate, trying to make sense of it, bewildered by the mysterious weaving of hands, intertwining of figures back and forth, in and out, up and down, still maintaining the form of the revolving circle, then a rush of awful reality as though those circles marked by the women’s slipping, sliding feet and intertwined fingers manifested some impenetrable knowledge, imprisoned some mystical charm, and the men hot and sweaty, all gape-mouthed and glassy-eyed, watching the sinuous rotations, while I, feeling drunker than I had ever been in my life, dipped the sweat from my forehead, somehow wanting everything to stop now, but it would not, I could not make it-my mouth gaping also as within the circles appeared other figures, small, lewd, primal figures of fecundity, all breasts and buttocks with great blank mouths and staring eyes, and no, I shouted, wanting to stop it, it was wrong, there was something terrible about it, suddenly it was all serious and it seemed to have woven some deeper, more sinister meaning into the circles round and round, the straw figures bobbing on poles, the women crushing them to their breasts with ecstatic moans, and where the children had been dancing the boys were no longer there but only the girls dancing in imitation of their elders, Missy Penrose dancing, not merely dancing, but as she turned, dervish-like, pointing, pointing around the hall, stopping, pointing at me-God damn you! I thought; damn you and your pointing finger and your chicken guts- and one or two of the girls were brought from their circle into the other circle and-
