"Sure. What do you want to hear?"
"Anything."
Yancey Garrow took his fiddle out of its case, tucked it under his chin, and drew the bow across it a couple of times. He began a lively rendition of "Yankee Doodle." Her face flushed with pleasure, Barbara emerged from her room.
"Long while since I've danced with a girl as pretty as you are!" Pete Domley declared. "Come on, Bobby."
He whirled her around the room while Yancey increased the tempo of his music. Grinning, Joe took Emma in his arms. A shadow darkened the door and Fellers Compton was there.
"Stretch my ears and call me a jackass!" he breathed. "You people get the best ideas of anybody in Missouri!"
He had a wrapped parcel in his hands and he put it down on the table. "Caroline put up too much strawberry preserves and she hopes to unload some of it on you, now that you're going away. Keep playing, Yancey. I'll be back."
While Joe danced with Barbara and Pete Domley with Emma, Yancey played "Oh, Susannah," and then another of Foster's songs. Putting his fiddle aside for a second, Yancey dipped himself a drink of water. Barbara's and Emma's eyes were glistening, for the air was tense and expectant. This was the way most parties started. Yancey put the gourd dipper beside the bucket of water just as old Tom Abend drove up with his wife, his three youngest children, his two married daughters, their husbands, and their children.
"Fellers said we might come over here to see what's goin' on," he greeted.
"Right good idea," Joe said.