When she had finished there was polite applause.
“I think it’s real sweet,” announced the one they called Violet. And began to snivel, unbecomingly.
Mr. Tom Haggerty now voiced the puzzlement which had been clouding his normally cheerful countenance.
“You call that a coon song and maybe it is. I don’t dispute you, mind. But I never heard any song like that called a coon song, and I heard a good many coon songs in my day. I Want Them Presents Back, and A Hot Time, and Mistah Johnson, Turn Me Loose.”
“Sing another,” they said, still more politely. “Maybe something not quite so sad. You’ll have us thinking we’re at prayer meeting next. First thing you know Violet here will start to repent her sins.”
So she sang All God’s Chillun Got Wings. They wagged their heads and tapped their feet to that. I got a wings. You got a wings. All o’ God’s chillun got a wings. When I get to heab’n I’m goin’ to put on my wings, I’m goin’ to fly all ovah God’s heab’n . . . heab’n . . .
Well, that, they agreed, was better. That was more like it. The red-faced cut-up rose on imaginary wings to show how he, too, was going to fly all over God’s heab’n. The forthright Blanche refused to be drawn into the polite acclaim. “If you ask me,” she announced, moodily, “I think they’re rotten.” “I like somepin’ a little more lively, myself,” said the girl they called Fifi. “Do you know What! Marry Dat Gal! I heard May Irwin sing it. She was grand.”
“No,” said Magnolia. “That’s the only kind of song I know, really.” She stood up. “I think we must be going now.” She looked across the table, her great dark eyes fixed on the red-faced bridegroom. “I hope you will be very happy.”
“A toast to the Ravenals! To Gaylord Ravenal and Mrs. Ravenal!” She acknowledged that too, charmingly. Ravenal bowed stiffly and glowered and for the second time that day wiped his forehead and chin and wrists with his fine linen handkerchief.
The chestnuts were brought round. Bliss Chapin’s crew crowded out to the veranda off the dining room. Magnolia stepped lightly up to the seat beside Ravenal in the high dog-cart. It was dusk. A sudden sharpness had come into the evening air as always, toward autumn, in that Lake Michigan region. Magnolia shivered a little and drew about her the little absurd flounced shoulder cape so recently purchased. The crowd on the veranda had caught the last tune and were strumming it now on their banjos and mandolins. The kindly light behind them threw their foolish faces into shadow. You heard their voices, plaintive, even sweet: the raucous note fled for the moment. Fifi’s voice and Jerry’s; Gerty’s voice and little Billee’s. I got a wings. You got a wings. All God’s chillun got a wings. When I get to heab’n I’m goin’ to put on my wings, I’m goin’ to fly . . .