Page:Weeds (1923).pdf/98

 thrown away upon said whiskey did not tend to make them more cheerful. They went through the dance as they had gone through everything else since childhood, as a matter of course, because the circumstances of their lives demanded it of them.

Toward the close of the dance, Tom Pooler fell sprawling upon the floor. The drink had gone to his legs as well as to his head. He took the fall as an unwarranted insult to his dignity and scrambled to his feet flushed with whiskey, importance and indignation.

"I tell ye, I'm a baar in the woods, I am. Nobody don't dass say nuthin to Tom Pooler that he don't wanta hear—not Ezry Pettit ner Hiram Stone ner none of 'em. I don't take no sass from nobody no matter haow much land they got. I bet I cud lick any man in Scott County. I tell ye I'm a baar in the woods."

"You shet up yer mouth, ye dern ole fool an' don't git to quarrelin' in yer own house. Whatcha drink all that whiskey fer?" admonished Aunt Nannie in a loud whisper close to his ear. He glared at her with small, fiery, bloodshot eyes, like an angry old boar at bay. She met the glare firmly and calmly. Under her cold gaze that had restrained him so many times before he calmed down. But for a long time he kept muttering to himself: "I'm a baar in the woods, I am. Yaas, sir, I'm a baar in the woods."

The young people had paid no attention to the dancing of their elders. They had slipped away into corners and were absorbed in their own affairs.

The party was over with the old folks' dance. There was much sorting out of clothing, wrapping up of sleeping babies and shaking of older children to get them wide enough awake to walk to the wagons. No one told the host and hostess that they had enjoyed themselves; such things went without saying. When the Pippingers were all ready to start and had at last selected their own lanterns out of the bewildering cluster by the door, Lizzie May was not to be found anywhere. They waited and called. By and by she appeared around the corner