When we arrived at the Whitt’s, I took Albion to the molassy making. This was the province of the old men. Their hands were too stiff with the rheumatism to shuck corn, so they sat on their chairs beside the sorghum pan and wielded their skimmers, pausing to stoke the fire. The green juice, squeezed from the cane at the wheel, was poured into one end, where it grew a thick skin like the scum on a stagnant pond. Clyde Baisden skimmed the top and sent the foaming juice on its way through the labyrinth of the pan. By journey’s end, the sorghum was a thick golden syrup helped along by old Homer Whitt’s wooden paddle.

“This uns a light batch, younguns,” said Homer. “Have a taste.”

We stuck our fingers beneath the pan where the molasses dripped slowly into a bucket. It was warm, sticky and light as Homer promised, sweet with a tangy green flavor. Mighty fine, we agreed. We lingered, for the fire beneath the pan warmed the whole area, until supper lured us away.

The women set out the food on tables inside the cabin: fried chicken and salty ham, mashed potatoes swimming in butter, green beans cooked with hunks of fatback, hot pickled corn, biscuits, yellow cornbread, boiled cabbage, sweet potatoes, green poke sallet in bacon grease, fresh kale, squirrel meat with dumplings, venison steaks, groundhog, red-eye gravy, milk gravy, stack cakes, apple pies. Albion piled his plate several inches high, a look of reverence on his face. He followed me outside and we sat down against Farrie Whitt’s watering trough. When we were done eating, it was difficult to stand up.

Afterwards the older women cleared away the food and washed the dishes, and the old men returned to the molassy making with a jug. The rest of us went to the bonfire near the heaps of corn and set to work stripping the silk and parchment shucks from the ears. The boys worked especially fast so that they might be the first to find a red ear and steal a kiss from the girl of their choice. Amos Preece, a boy from Scary School, pulled so hard and carelessly at the shucks that he sometimes snapped the ear in two. He was sweet on Ila Mae Slone and had never declared himself, but everyone knew it, and Ila Mae neglected her own shucking to watch the cobs as he uncovered them.

“Red ear!” Vance McCoy called, but he did not have it. It was Albion, sitting astraddle a milk bucket, who turned the dark thing this way and that in his hands.

“Hit’s the drummer’s boy!” They laughed and teased. “Who’s your girl here, drummer? Reckon you got one in every holler.”

He looked around briefly and ducked his head. He was shy with girls; they laughed at school about how quiet he was, how homely. He daydreamed often, so that he did not hear when Ben called upon him. He was not good at the games the boys played. He was a stranger to Scary Creek, he came from beyond, bearing some taint of misfortune, and everyone knew it.