After supper, I watched Jim-Bo oil his squirrel rifle. Aunt Vic called him Baby Jones because he was her youngest boy, but he was still lots older than me. Both of my older cousins, Casey and Hi, had pulled off their boots and had edged their chairs close to the heater so they could prop their feet against the top of the wood box while they read. Jim-Bo had started calling me his Cuddin Sally Sue. I told him and told him that wasn't my name! "Well, all right, you're Cuddin Sookie Sue." "That's my doll's name!" Jim-Bo put his gun back on the rack. "Ail right, Bandershanks," he said, "do you want to hear some fiddlin' music! How 'bout it, will y'all play some for Bandershanks?" "Sure. We need practice, anyhow. Eh, Hi?" "Huh? What'd you say, Casey?" "Let's practice a little for Saturday night and play a tune or so for Bandershanks. She don't never hear dancing music." "Suits me." Hi-Pockets turned down a page in his magazine and slid it under his chair. "Jim-Bo, go get us the guitar and fiddle outta the side room." "You've got legs!" "I've done pulled off my boots." "And I reckon your little bittie tootsies might get cold walking from here to the side room and back!" "Boys!" "I'll get them." When Jim-Bo got back, he handed his fiddle to Casey, the guitar to Hi-Pockets. Then he sat down in the chair next to mine. "Jim-Bo, what you gonna play?" "Me? Why, nothing, Bandershanks. I'm the hat man. I just pass the hat!" "Pass what hat?" "When Casey and Hi are down at Calico Neck playing for a Saturday night dance, I go along to pass around the hat for them. You know, take up the money?" "Church money?" "No, gal! The money for the musicians. Want me to tell you 'bout dances?" "Yeah, you tell me!" "All right, little Cuddin Sally Sue! While—" "I ain't Sally Sue! I done told you!" "Well, Lady Bandershanks, then! While Casey—" "I ain't a lady. I'm—" "Shh, now. While Casey and Hi tune up, I'm gonna explain to you all about dances down at Calico Neck, from start to finish. Lemme light my pipe first, though. Folks down there don't generally give but five or six dances the whole winter—none in crop time." "How come?" "I reckon they think when us fellows walk behind a mule all day our legs get so wore out we couldn't dance none!" Jim-Bo sucked hard on his pipe stem, and as soon as the tobacco started glowing he let me blow out the match. He shifted his pipe to the corner of his mouth and motioned for me to move over and sit on his knees. "When somebody does decide to have a shindig, they get the word around to all the young folks down that way. Then they send for Casey and Hi and me to come do the fiddlin'. 'Course they call on Uncle Hiram, too." "Who's Uncle Hiram, Jim-Bo?" "He's just an old man with a fiddle. I don't know whose uncle he is, but he told me one night he's Miss Dink's brother." "Has he got a peg leg?" Aunt Vic asked. "Yes'm."