“Oh, I’ll be all right. I feel better tonight than I have for a long while. I’ve been feeling badly to see you sticking here so closely on my account. I hope you’ll have a nice time. I never was at a party at the Corners, but I used to go sometimes, long ago, to dances up back. We always had good times. And you needn’t be afraid of Father being drunk tonight. He never drinks when he engages to play for a party. But—there may be—liquor. What will you do if it gets rough?”
“Nobody would molest me.”
“Not seriously, I suppose. Father would see to that. But it might be noisy and—and unpleasant.”
“I won’t mind. I’m only going as a looker-on. I don’t expect to dance. I just want to see what a party up back is like. I’ve never seen anything except decorous Deerwood.”
Cissy smiled rather dubiously. She knew much better than Valancy what a party “up back” might be like if there should be liquor. But again there mightn’t be.
“I hope you’ll enjoy it, dear,” she repeated.
Valancy enjoyed the drive there. They went early, for it was twelve miles to Chidley Corners, and they had to go in Abel’s old, ragged top-buggy. The road was rough and rocky, like most Muskoka roads, but full of the austere charm of northern woods. It wound through beautiful, purring pines that were ranks of enchantment in the June sunset, and over the curious jade-green rivers of Muskoka, fringed by aspens that were always quivering with some supernal joy.
Roaring Abel was excellent company, too. He knew all the stories and legends of the wild, beautiful “up back,” and he told them to Valancy as they drove along. Valancy had several fits of inward laughter over what Uncle Benjamin and Aunt Wellington, et al., would feel and think and say if they saw her driving with Roaring Abel in that terrible buggy to a dance at Chidley Corners.
At first the dance was quiet enough, and Valancy was amused and entertained. She even danced twice herself, with a couple of nice “up back” boys who danced beautifully and told her she did, too.
Another compliment came her way—not a very subtle one, perhaps, but Valancy had had too few compliments in her life to be over-nice on that point. She overheard two of the “up back” young men talking about her in the dark “lean-to” behind her.