We went into the big room in the plant where they put the parts together. The small machines were pushed up against the wall, and that left a big space on the floor for dancing. There weren't too many dances in the valley. Now with the war on and the men gone there hadn't been one in a long time. Aunt Mae went behind a table where they had some food and helped the women there. Mother and I just sat on a chair by a big gray machine and watched the people.
A band came after we were there about fifteen minutes. It had a piano, a bass fiddle, a banjo, and a trumpet. The players were from the county seat, I think, and were all men except for the woman who played the piano. They struck up a lively tune that I'd heard plenty times before but didn't know the name. A few women started dancing with each other. Except for Aunt Mae, they all had on thin summer dresses with flower patterns all over. You could see the flowers moving across the floor, a rose pattern with a gardenia and a violet with a sunflower.
The room was pretty filled. More people came in all the time and stood around against the tin walls and the machines. Some would start in dancing with each other, or see someone they knew and start talking. Before we knew it, Aunt Mae was on the floor dancing with that woman who walked home with us after the night we saw Bobbie Lee. Aunt Mae took the man's part, and she was swinging the woman all over. The band was playing a song I always heard on the radio called "Chattanooga Choo Choo." When they saw what Aunt Mae and the woman were doing, the other dancers moved back in a circle and let them have the whole floor. Mother and I stood up on our chairs to see over the heads of all the people who had crowded around the floor. They were calling, "Look at Flora" -- which was the name of the other woman -- and "Swing her, Miss Gebler," and "Look at those two go."
When it was over everyone clapped. Aunt Mae got through the crowd of women who were patting her on the back and came over and sat down by us. She was trying to fix a heel on her shoe that came loose. It wouldn't go back on, so Aunt Mae sat by Mother and they talked. By now the floor was full of women dancing and trying to watch out for the little children who ran in and out between them. Aunt Mae watched them, and I knew she was disappointed over the heel.
The women walking past where we sat were carrying big glasses full of white foam that dripped over the sides. They didn't usually have beer at any party in town, and Aunt Mae said the manager of the factory sent it over from the capital, where they had the brewery. She told me to go get her a glass. I could hardly get through to the table where they were giving it out, there were so many women and little children around it. Aunt Mae took her glass and took a long drink, then got a faraway look in her eye and belched.
It was almost ten o'clock. Most of the beer was gone, but there were still plenty dancers on the floor. The little children were sleeping on top of the machines with their legs hanging down the sides. Women stopped by where we were sitting and told Aunt Mae it was the best party they'd been to since they were girls. After a while the band played a waltz, and Mother asked me if I wanted to dance. I never danced before, but we didn't do too bad. Mother was a good dancer, though, so she took the boy's part. I was almost as tall as she was, so I don't know how we looked.
Some woman got up where the band was playing and asked if there was anybody who could sing. Nobody in town sang except the woman at the preacher's church, but she had the kind of high voice that nobody liked. Flora, the woman who danced with Aunt Mae, got up by the band with the other woman and said that Miss Gebler, the supervisor, told her she used to sing. Everybody looked over where we were sitting. Aunt Mae said no, she hadn't sung in years, and she'd just make them hate her, but everybody told her to come on or they wouldn't go home that night. After they went on this way for a while Aunt Mae said alright, like I knew she wanted to say when they first asked her. Aunt Mae had a few beers, so I wondered what she'd do. She took off her shoes, because of the heel, and went on up to the band and talked with them for about a minute.
Then the piano started up and played a few notes. Aunt Mae nodded her head. The big fiddle began to thump, and the piano started again with the banjo. Aunt Mae turned around.
"Saint Louis woman with your diamond rings
Got this man of mine by your apron strings. . ."
The trumpet blew a few notes here that sounded real good. Aunt Mae sounded good too. I didn't know she sang like this. Her voice was better than any I ever heard outside of the movies. I looked at Mother, and she was looking at Aunt Mae with her eyes all watery. The women stared at her. Nobody in the valley heard anyone ever sing a song like that except on the radio.
Aunt Mae finished, and they all whistled and clapped. They wanted her to sing again, but the only song the band knew that she knew was "God Bless America," so she sang it. It was a song that you always heard on the radio then, and everybody sang it with her the second time. When that was over, the women all grabbed ahold of Aunt Mae and hugged her. She was crying as she came to where we were.
As we walked home up the path, the cool summer night had set in. No matter how hot it was in the day, it was cool in the hills at night. Aunt Mae had talked all the way home after we left the plant, after everyone had stopped talking to her and we got away at last. We left after midnight and were the last ones to go except for the night watchman. It was about one now. Up ahead I could see the house with the lights on. I could feel my bed under me, but Aunt Mae was going slow. Right when we got into the yard and could hear the cinders grinding under our feet, Aunt Mae turned around and looked down at the town and held Mother by the arm.
"You know, I never thought I'd be happy here." Then she looked out onto the hills and the night sky.
We didn't see much of Aunt Mae after that. One of the old men who played in the band at the plant that night asked her if she wanted to sing with them all the time. They had a lot of jobs in the hills playing and went into the county seat and the capital sometimes, too. When Aunt Mae came home from the plant in the evening, she put on the dress she wore to sing with the band and went off. The old man met her at the foot of the hill in his truck with the bass fiddle in the back. I used to sit on the porch in the twilight when the night birds were beginning to sing and watch Aunt Mae go down the path in her good dress and disappear where the hill got steep and I couldn't see her anymore. A while later I could see the old man's truck going off down Main Street with Aunt Mae's arm resting on the door and the big fiddle in the back.
The newspaper had a story in it about the band once, with a picture of Aunt Mae singing along. It was like all the other pictures in our paper. Aunt Mae's hair looked like a cloud with a bunch of colored men playing behind her. In all the pictures people's skin was always dark and their hair white, no matter what color it really was. The story told all about how Aunt Mae was once a famous singer and that people like her were needed in the valley to make people feel good. Mr. Watkins wrote a letter to the editor about the story. It said that the people of the valley needed a lot more things before they needed Aunt Mae. Then Aunt Mae wrote a letter that said the valley needed a lot less people like Mr. Watkins, if it needed anything. They didn't have any more letters in the paper on either side, and I thought it was over when the preacher got into it.
He put an ad in the paper that had a list of reasons from the Bible why the band and Aunt Mae weren't doing anyone any good. After Bobbie Lee Taylor left, the town was split over the preacher. The people who didn't go to the preacher's conference when Bobbie Lee was in town were dropped from the church rolls. The people who got dropped were mad at the preacher because everyone liked to go to church if he could pay the pledge. Of course, there were people like us who didn't belong to the church when all this happened, and the preacher said they were the kind that "didn't care which way the wind blew."