Read Online Nathan Coulter by Wendell Berry - Free Book Online Page B

I felt silly then with everybody looking at us and laughing, but we’d already paid our money and there was nothing to do but keep going.
    It was so dark inside the tent after we’d been out in the sun that we could hardly see. But our eyes got used to it, and we stood around waiting for the show to start. There weren’t any seats. About a third of the tent was roped off to give Bubbles room to put on her show. In a corner of the roped off part was a kind of booth made of old carpets, and beneath the front flap we could see a woman’s bare feet with red polish on the toenails.
    We waited a good while, hearing the man making his speech again in front of the tent, and now and then another bunch of men and boys came in. The tent filled up. Mushmouth and Chicken Little Montgomery came in with one of the last bunches, but they were the only ones we knew. I’d seen most of the others before, but I didn’t know their names.
    Mushmouth and Chicken Little were ashamed to be seen in such a place. While we waited they stood together on the edge of the crowd, pretending they were the only ones there. They were both a little drunk, and when somebody happened to look at them they’d grin and back up.
    Finally the man in the derby hat quit talking and followed the last bunch through the door. Everybody crowded up to the rope, thinking the show was about to start. But he went into the booth where Bubbles was and came out with a little table and a deck of cards. He set the table up on our side of the rope.
    â€œGentlemen,” he said, “we still have a few minutes before show time.” He shuffled the cards and made them rattle down in a pile on the table. “There’s nothing to ease the body, clear the mind, and settle the soul like a friendly card game.” He shuffled the cards again, but that time he made
a mislick and they fell out of his hands. “Excuse me, gentlemen. I’ve had a little too much of your good Kentucky whiskey, I’m afraid.” He picked up the cards and shuffled them again, then thumbed three cards off the top of the deck and held them up. “I have here the queen of spades, the nine of diamonds and the four of clubs.” He laid the three cards face down on the table and switched them around.
    Then he looked at Mushmouth and Chicken Little, who were standing on the other side of the table. “Now, can one of you gentlemen pick the queen?”
    The queen card had a bent corner and it was easy to pick out. Chicken Little looked around the tent and grinned, then he turned the card. It was the queen.
    â€œYou have a fine eye, sir,” the man in the derby hat said. “A wonderful eye.”
    He turned the card over and began switching them again. “And now for a dollar, sir, can you tell me the queen?”
    Chicken Little laid a dollar on the table and turned the card with the bent corner. He had it right again, and the man in the derby hat paid off. It seemed he’d had too much whiskey to keep straight on what he was doing.
    Mushmouth and two or three others laid down dollar bills and the man lost again. On the next round about a dozen of the men laid down dollar bills, and Brother and I laid down a dollar apiece. He asked which was the queen. Somebody turned the card with the bent corner, but it was the nine of diamonds. The next time it was the nine of diamonds. And the next time it was the four of clubs. Before we realized what had happened the man had crossed the rope and was in the booth. Everybody was awfully quiet, feeling too foolish even to be mad.
    The man in the derby came out again and said that Bubbles would now dance for us. Some thumpy music began playing, and he pulled back the flap and let Bubbles out. We crowded up to the rope.
    She was a tall black-haired woman who looked hardmouthed and tired until she faced us and began to smile and sway back and forth to the music. Her eyebrows were painted black and curled around on