He gave a little slide and skip. Albion was a good clog dancer. It was a cause of scandal to the Regular Baptists on Marrowbone Creek, whose preacher didn’t hold with dancing. When confronted once in Henryclay with a Regular Baptist pining after his soul, Albion pointed out in the same calm way he defended his winemaking that King David “danced before the Lord with all his might” in the streets of Jerusalem.

“He werent wearing much neither,” Albion added. “Reckon I can dance with my clothes on.”

“Hit’s for such sin that Jesus paid the price with his blood!” the Regular Baptist had cried.

“Praise the Lord!” Albion answered with equal fervor. “Aint it good to know we’re bought and paid fer?”

He heard later that the Regular Baptists had prayed for an hour the next Sunday that he might be saved. He shook his head and said, “What a bait of time taken away from thanking God.”

Outside the schoolhouse, men gathered to take the air and smoke their pipes or spit tobacco juice. They hunkered down on their haunches and rocked back and forth.

“Good band, preacher,” said one.

“Sounds like it.” Albion squatted down. “Where’d Ralph git them from?”

“Heard them up in Inez last month. Called the Blackberry Pickers.”

I stiffened. Albion was still talking with the men. After a moment I slipped over to the doorway and looked inside. Three men played “Soldiers Joy”—a round-faced fiddle player, balding with a fringe of curly hair around the back of his head; a thin, sallow guitar picker. And Rondal, flailing the banjo.

Pappy Thornsberry stood inside the door. “Aint seen a banjo picker yet that cracked a smile. You ever notice that, youngun? Now that fiddle player, he appears to be having fun.”

I moved past Pappy toward the center of the room, bumped into several dancers. Rondal held his shoulders back, the banjo resting on the slope of his abdomen. He stared over the heads of the dancers, pursed his lips. The others nodded at him and stepped back; Rondal took up the melody. His hand moved across the banjo head as though he were rousing it, scratching and stroking. The fiddle came back in, strong and harsh. Rondal dropped his head and retreated. His eyes swept over the dancers and he saw me. He stared, still flailing, and then he smiled slightly and nodded his head. He looked away, but he still smiled.

“Who’s that feller?”

Albion stood beside me.

“Hit’s—he’s just—” I stopped for his eyes brimmed with hurt.

“Hit’s all right,” he said. “I understand. You ready to dance?”

The desks had been pushed against the wall and a square dance formed. The band played “Handsome Molly,” and Fred Combs stood by them to call. Around we went, and Rondal flashed into my vision each time Albion swung me. After the dance we went to the dessert table and Albion bought me a slice of sugar-dusted apple pie. We didn’t speak. Dancers swirled past, their feet banging the floorboards and skittering on across, their legs swinging loose at the knees like doors on hinges. One old man, Mr. Pauley, danced by himself, a shuffle step with an occasional lunge like a chicken pecking. He hooked his thumbs around a pair of bright red suspenders. Behind him Rondal scanned the room with studied disinterest.