Young folks don't seem to give it much thought. Just across the road (it
is paved now) the raucous sound of the juke box is heard playing I
Understand, Hut Sut, You Are My Sunshine and Booglie, Wooglie, Piggy.
The jitterbugs are at it early and late. They know all the hits on the
Hit Parade. They know Frankie Masters' and Jimmy Dorsey's latest records
and the newest step and shake. If they ever tire, which is rarely, there
are booths and stalls where they may sip a soda, drain a bottle of coke,
crunch a sandwich, a yard-long hot dog, a hamburger. Or, if he is real
sophisticated and she "has been farther under the house hunting eggs
than some have been on the railroad cars," he will cautiously draw his
hip flask, when the waiter or proprietor isn't looking, and pour a snort
of year-old or Granddad in the glass of cracked ice. Sure, you buy your
cracked ice, what do you think this is? "Let's go on to the Rainbow,"
she suggests presently, when only cracked ice is left in the glass.
"Rainbow? You got your rainbow right here in the juke box," he answers.
"I don't mean no rainbow like's on the groan box, and you know it."
Maybe they go, maybe they don't. But things are surely changing along
the once quiet mountain trail. Now if the lad is real devilish he will
try a slug in the juke box instead of a coin. Then the proprietor drops
his beaming smile and asserts his authority. A young stripling or two
may drop in, stagging it. One gets an eye on a pretty girl dancing with
her date. But just let him try to cut in. "Can't you read?" With the
proprietor's husky voice the intruder feels at the same moment the
proprietor's firm hand upon his shoulder. "What's eatin' you? Can't you
read, I say!" The owner of the big voice and bigger fist points a
warning finger to the sign on the wall--