Immediately, violin and banjo began a jiggy, jouncy tune. Felix clapped his hands in time, and Deborah, surprisingly, got out of her chair and made gliding, dancing steps as she joined her brother-in-law. Penelope and Nell laughed and clapped encouragement as Felix and Deborah began to dance.

“Where are the young’uns?” Felix demanded. “They should be dancing!”

Leon stepped from the shadows and assumed a caricature of the male dancing posture. Sarah came forward and curtsied and joined hands with him. They danced country fashion, the hearty, somewhat vulgar movements given charm and innocence by their youth. Deborah and Felix left off and clapped their hands in time to the music, as did Nell and Penelope.

Upstairs, Selma and Pauline leaned over the windowsill of Selma’s room to hear better. Remembering the occasion long ago when her father died and Christmas was celebrated by the Negroes, but meagerly in the main house, and she had gone out to the cabin where they were playing music and dancing and had been invited by Pauline to join a circle of children—remembering that time, Selma now reached her hand to Pauline’s, not in need but in gratitude and affection.

19

Lovey was her instant champion, though she needed none. Myrtis invited her to come and go in her kitchen as she would, which astonished everyone who overheard, for since old Cook had died, Myrtis had changed from a simple, amiable girl to a fierce and jealous queen of her domain. Ezra showed Sarah his sick animals and explained what was wrong with them and what he was doing to heal them. Without effort or calculation, she struck the right note with everyone. So in tune was she at this time, she became what anyone sought or thought to see in her.

Deborah found her “sensible and practical, with right attitudes toward things that mattered.” Nell discovered that she was particularly sympathetic to the afflictions of others. Felix pronounced her “a capital girl, so very free and jolly.”