"You uns never hearn the beat in all yer life," she said, her eyes dilated and her head nodding to one side, with pride and delight. "He sung sweeter than any mawkin' bird, but he said ter me, 'Lydy, ef ye'll permit me ter say it,'"—she imitated Lloyd's grave, circumspect manner, "'it's a monstious pity fur yer rare voice an' yer 'strodinary grace in dancin' ter be wasted hyar in this wilderness—would ye consider a proposition ter puffawm in public?'"
She bent forward in such a pretty reverential bow that Tom Pinnott, lying on a pile of sacks of grain,—his shoulder was still lame, and he rested it at close intervals,—called out to the others:
"Look-a-yander at Clotildy. She air mawkin' the stranger-man. It's the very moral o' the critter."
Binley had a vague realisation of the grinning of half a dozen sets of great tobacco-browned teeth among the group that sat around the furnace, perched on kegs or inverted baskets, or sacks of grain. His head was unsteady. His heart beat tumultuously. He hardly knew what was this obsession that had enthralled him. Jealousy he had felt ere this in minor matters, but he had so little conception of the strength of the passion that now, when it grappled with him, he did not recognise it.
"I went straight an' axed dad ef I mought," Clotilda resumed, a little thread of continuous laughter trickling through her words, like a rivulet that cannot stay its joyous course. "I tuk dad out on the porch 'cause he blates so loud whenst he talks—an' fust he said naw, and then when he 'membered 'bout sellin' whisky ter the crowd on the quiet in that dry town, and that folks would 'low ez the family war thar jes' ter view me sing an' dance an' not ter sell moonshine, it 'peared ter him a powerful good excuse ter go."
"Hop light, ladies," sang out Tom, who had a powerful organ in his own deep chest.
But Clotilda put her hands to her ears with a grimace of pain. "I never wants ter hear no other man sing—that stranger's voice was like—like honey. 'Twar so—sweet—soundin'."
Her pensive lids drooped above her great bright eyes and she gave a shuddering little sigh, as if the ecstatic remembrance were fraught with an appreciated pain.
Old Shadrach Pinnott had a sudden monition of business. "That's a fac', boys," he said, taking his pipe from his mouth, "every durned imp of ye mus' be at the tent ter hear Clotildy puffawm—'tis the reason folks mus' understand why we uns all waggon down ter Colb'ry. Mam'll go, an' A'minty an' the baby, all o' we uns will go, an' nobody on yearth would suspicion ez we uns kem fur ennything else than ter hear an' see Clotildy sing an' dance in a public puffawmance."
He puffed his pipe for a few minutes while the others gave varying growls of more or less reluctant acquiescence as they accorded or disagreed with his view of the importance of their appearance as spectators on the occasion. He possibly discriminated this note of dissent, for he remarked presently—"It air sure a powerful oncommon happening—I reckon Clotildy will be the fust mounting gal that ever sung an' danced in a show tent."