Then the two were dancing, dancing the folk dances that Sally had spent many hours that afternoon teaching the novice. Wally allowed himself to become a cog in the great mechanism of the culture of the barn, moving around the dance floor in “promenades” and other motions. Sally followed his moves with her eyes whenever possible, eyes filled with a mixture of girlish admiration of a handsome stranger and womanly pride at the proper indoctrination of an uncouth male.
It was after several numbers that a mildly sweaty Wally managed to pull himself away from the dancing crowd and retreat into the relative coolness of the shadows surrounding the dancers. Sally followed him off the dance floor, complimented his moves, and asked him if he would like to “get some fresh air” outside the confines of the barn.
Wally replied that he would, and the two stepped through the rear barn door to enjoy the freezing cold and the moon beginning to rise over a distant summit. “I think it’s gotten even colder,” Wally observed as he inhaled sharply to savor the change.
“I’ve got something that’ll warm us up.” Sally didn’t see Wally’s surprised look aside, as she was bending over to remove a flask strapped to one slender thigh. To Wally’s shocked look, she replied, “Gerald Baker got this for me last he was in Albany.” She untwisted the silver cap. “And a bottle of whiskey for filler.”
“I didn’t know you were a drinker.” Wally smiled as his boss’s daughter handed him the flask after taking a small swig for herself. He leaned his head back to take a shot.
“I wasn’t, but I’d thought I’d give it a try while I still had the chance.”
Wally was savoring the taste of cheap whiskey in his mouth, unchanged from his early undergraduate days. “Pardon?”
“Wally, you’ve got to pay more attention to the world around you. Nebraska ratified the Eighteenth day before yesterday.”
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