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took notice of him, a fine strong handsome boy, and she told herself that her chances of being chosen as his partner were slight, and thus she did not, as some of the other girls were doing, primp and pose and prettify herself.
    Sure enough, he did not even seem to notice Tish but selected Spicy Bourne, another Carlotter, like her sisters a feisty beauty and, also like her sisters, rather conceited and smug, but a vivacious dancer.
    Archy’s appearance emboldened several other males, who climbed the Platform and joined sniffwhips in a ring for the singing and dancing of “Skip to My Lou”:
    Flies in the buttermilk, two by two,
    Flies in the buttermilk, shoo fly shoo,
    Flies in the buttermilk, two by two,
    Skip to my Lou, my darlin.

    This was not a “square” so much as a circle, everyone ringing around the dancing couple, who one by one drew others into the center of the circle. Tish hoped she would be drawn by Archy, but she could only stand at her place in the ring, all six of her gitalongs tapping expectantly to the beat of the dance, and fix her eyes and her sniffwhips steadily upon him while he danced with Spicy Bourne. Like most males, he did not devote his attention to his partner; in fact, he seemed to ignore Spicy with his eyes and sniffwhips, which kept roaming around the circle in search of another girl, but the girl he picked was not Tish but Rosa Faye Duckworth. Tish could only wait until he was once again through with his partner and chose a new one.
    The play-party is meant to be an innocent frolic. Compared with the more adult and more exciting square dance, the play-party is supposedly a chaste gathering, approved by the most hidebound Crustians, but still the occasional incident of unrestrained lust will occur, off in the “brushes,” the forest of weeds on the edge of Carlott. The couple abandoning the Platform and giving in to their desires do not reappear during the whole night, for the act of sexual congress is a complicated congeries of anatomical hookups, end-to-end splicings and interconnections, from which the couple cannot extricate themselves until the male’s marble has been thoroughly enthroned within the female’s chamber, a process, literally, that takes hour upon hour.
    Thus, tonight, while Tish was still waiting for Archy to take notice of her, and the repertoire of games had gone from “Skip to My Lou” to “Shoot the Buffalo” to “Humpin the Santa Fe” and “Spinnin the Spider,” the party was suddenly silenced by the abrupt appearance of Brother Chidiock Tichborne, who was dragging into view the still-conjoined bodies of a youth and maiden whom he had discovered “making the beast with two heads” off in the brushes.
    The unfortunate couple were embarrassed beyond all mortification, not simply for having been surprised in the act by the minister but also for their inability to separate, to unclasp, to unlink, to undo all the various latches, clamps and sphincters that linked them together, tail to tail in opposite directions. The girl was weeping piteously, and the boy was growling in helpless rage, with their faces so downcast as to make them unrecognizable.
    “Looky here!” shouted Brother Tichborne in a voice that surely carried all the way to Holy House. “Sinners! Afore the sight of the Lord! All of y’uns bow down on yore knees!”
    The assembled crowd of young folks, or at least all the Crustians among them, knelt, or crouched, in attitudes of fear and submission. A few remained flagrantly unbowed at first, but Brother Tichborne’s voice and his lashing sniffwhips soon stunned them into prostration.
    “These here play-parties and dances has got to stop!” the minister boomed. He expatiated on the temptations of the flesh, the pitfalls of dancing, and the teachings of our Lord Joshua Crust, who had expressly forbidden any activity that might exalt physical pleasure. But he held his ultimate censure for the end of his sermon:
    “And who do we have here?”