“Testament has talked Mrs. Holt into keepin’ her until this here church benefit is over. It’s goin’ to be a e-leet affair, I’ll tell a man. Nothin’ like it has ever been thought about before, Ike. This is one time when Piperock shines as a social center and abolishes her rough career.”
When it comes to dancing I sure have always shook a wicked hoof, but this kinda stuff had me hoppled. You take two or three little running steps ahead, stop and wave your arms in the air, and kick out behind like a mule. Then you duck to one side, whirl around, lift up your arms again and go hippety-hopping around the place, kinda singing—
“Tra-la-la—, tra-la-la, la, la.”
That represents a little zephyr of Spring, you understand. There was five little zephyrs in our Spring. We zephyred around and around. Miss Harrison said we was getting the idea. Then she had us zephyr alone, while the other four little breezes set down and made smart remarks. There was considerable feeling aroused during this lesson.
Five little zephyrs took her back to the hotel, and then one little zephyr went home and packed up his burro. That one little zephyr had a vision of a big blow coming and wanted to get out of the road.
Magpie tried to plead with us, but me and the mule remained firm. Magpie’s voice was full of tears, but I shook my head, packed my jassack and went to live a while with “Dirty Shirt” Jones, who lives several miles away from the center of disturbance.
Dirty Shirt ain’t neither sane nor sanitary, but he appreciates me a heap. Dirty is cockeyed, but he believes in handing you bokays while you are yet in the land of the living and not waiting until you are ready for your weight of sand.
Dirty squints at me and says:
“I know you’d show up, Ike. It’s about time for Piperock to make a fool of itself again. What’s itchin’ the old town this time?”
“Interpretive dancing.”