Adventure Magazine Cover — page 28: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

18 spectacle. Birdsong squatted on his heels, shooting out his legs like pistons. “This is ‘Layin’ Off Corn!’ ”’ he shouted at the skeptical Colombian. Suddenly he half rose, and retained the posture with hands and feet criss-crossing in a flurry of agility. ‘**Plantin’ the Seed!’”’ he yelled. When this was established to a machine- like virtuosity, he shifted and began switching in his toes. ** *Kiverin’ the Row!” he called. “And now I’m ‘Layin’ By!” Here he fell into a motion of such swift- ness that he jiggled up and down like a marionette. He seemed to blur. He seemed to have four flying legs and two shadowy heads. It was the most remarkable exhibition of strength and agility Lassiter had ever seen. At first he was amused and amazed. Then his amusement ceased. Jigs or breakdowns among the moun- taineers of Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina are really expressions of their harsh, arid lives. They are awkward, fantastic, and are based on a sort of grim travesty of the labor of the hill-folk, or the movements of animals; such as turkeys scratching in straw, hogs dashing through canebrakes, men and women stooping in weariness over sterile, stony soil. But the dancing of these grotesque steps is a feat of strength. Lassiter was too sensitive not to catch the bleakness of soul among a people who could evolve such a dance. That bleakness was written not only in Birdsong’s steps and furious leaps and jerks, but it was in the rigid staring face which he maintained throughout the performance. It was a dance of desolation, of blind graceless reaction against suppression. It formed an illuminating commentary to Lassiter on all the mouthings of hell-fire, Satan’s power, eternal damnation, ever- lasting flames, and a hundred other revival- istic catch-phrases he had heard fall from Birdsong’s lips. The jig held a spiritual tragedy in its unloveliness. What Balthasar thought of this gringo - dance, he gave no indication. His Latin courtesy probably repressed a smile, or a shudder. Birdsong stopped as abruptly as he began, dripping with sweat. His thick- barreled chest heaved. For a moment he stood staring at his audience of two. Adventure “Sefior Birdsong,”’ began the Colombian, “that was a—an unusual dance, a remark- able——”’ He broke off because Birdsong’s face un- derwent a queer change. The colporteur whitened under his sweat. Amid his pant- ing he gasped out: “My God, what have I done? Redeemer—what have I done? sel of the Blessed Truth——” He lapsed into the silence and the stoicism of .his kind. Lassiter looked at him. Such remorse was written even in his hard-lined face that the agent was moved to express a doubt whether such an acrobatic performance was a dance. ; Birdsong shook his head gloomily. “TY know you mean well, Brother Lassiter, but the devil is using your tongue to lead me to destruction—The devil is right here, watching us this minute—he’s here! Right now! Just as shore as when he choked Chombo Meone’s mule!” The colporteur’s gesture, the look of the huge, igneous pass, and the memory of Chombo’s tale, all helped produce an illusion of some veritable malign presence. Birdsong caught his mule, which had backed away from its master’s uncanny perform- ance. again, but the incident completely removed all lilt of gaiety that had inspired them. | Balthasar resumed his lead. He seemed Merciful Me, a ves- to be pondering something, and presently he said— “Senior Birdsong, you have a queer re- ligion—mostly about the devil.” “fe is our arch enemy, Brother Nunes. See how he tempted me to pride in my strength—lowly worm of the dust that Iam.” “Surely there is no harm in kicking one’s legs?”’ “Suppose my blessed Redeemer had called me home while I was jigging like that, don’t you know I would have gone as straight to hell as you’ll go when you die, heathen though you be, and child of the living God though I be.” Birdsong’s continual contrast of his own righteousness to Nunes’s sinfulness pricked the skin of the easy-going Colombian. He seemed about to retort when he broke off abruptly and the forward mule came to a halt; then it began to back away with that down-dropping of its haunches charac- teristic of frightened mules. Balthasar DOOLK The little company started ahead (C@