It looked like at least three hundred or more people had shown up to see Cory off. Tables with white linen clothes were piled high with cakes of every sort. Pitchers of lemonade and iced tea were scattered unevenly among the cakes, and every now and then there were stacks of small plates and some forks, and red and blue Dixie cups.
The party had already started before we got there. Gus Mitchum and Khalid Khomer were playing a fiddle duet.
"I've heard that song before," I said to Silas and Sallie. "Isn't that Carry Me Back to Ol' Virginny? " I asked.
"Yes, I think it is," Silas nodded.
Sallie agreed, "Uh huh, it sure is."
"I'm a little surprised they'd be playing a song like that, with its long history of controversy."
"Controversy?" Silas looked at me quizzically. "Why, there ain't nothing controversial about it. Cory just likes the song a lot, says it reminds him of one of his girlfriends in his last life. Her name was Virginia. That's all."
"Oh," I said, embarrassed.
"Besides," Sallie whispered. "Most folks don't even know the words. And it's the title what's important. At least for this evening."
"So Cory wants to find his old girlfriend in his next life?"
"Maybe," Silas said with a sly grin. "Wait, watch, and wizen up."
The next tune was Oh Susannah!
"Who's Susannah? " I asked.
"Susan," Silas whispered. Susan McFarland. Now, hush! I want to hear this one."
The next string of songs included Georgia on My Mind, Rod McKuen's Jean, Sweet Caroline, Take a Letter, Maria, You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille, and Mrs Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter.
"Good Lord," Sallie whispered under her breath. "I didn't realize Cory Larson was such a ladies' man!"
"Hmmm," Silas answered. He swung his hand out to Sallie, and said, "Come on, Woman, let's cut the rug!"
They danced through Maggie May, which sounded a little strange played on two violins, and Sylvia's Mother, which also sounded a little funny on the violins. After that, someone I didn't recognize said something to Gus and Khalid, and they started playing things like Cottoneye Joe and other more traditional fiddle tunes. Lucy started clogging, and several others joined it.
The whole time people were eating cake and drinking, laughing, dancing, carrying on. Every now and then I saw Cory as he made his way through the crowd. He was smiling, shaking hands with people, hugging the old ladies and tussling the younger boys' hair. Men clapped him on the back, and over the course of the evening I spotted three separate teenaged girls kiss him on the cheek.
I mingled a little, spoke briefly with a few people, and made a little polite conversation. Mostly I just gawked at this great gathering of souls.
At one point I saw Silas across the sway of people. He was talking privately with Cory, and when they finished speaking they hugged one another warmly and slapped each other on the back.
Sallie and I were eating a piece of Cornelius' vanilla cream cake with strawberry icing and talking with Mrs McMillan when the music stopped abruptly. Everyone moved pretty quickly near and around the pond. I expected it was time for speeches. I was wrong.
Cory Larson was standing about twenty or thirty feet from the edge of the pond. All of a sudden I heard him scream at the top of his lungs, "Gang way!" The crowd instinctively parted, like a miniature Red Sea. Cory, running at full force, made a loud yawpish yell, waved his arms wildly, his face radiant with exhilaration. He belly flopped into the pond, and some of the ladies standing too near the pond got doused with the splashing water. Everyone fell silent and waited patiently, reverently, until the last ripple was stilled.
A thunderous, ear-splitting roar went up among the people, an exuberant applause, a mixture of loud hurrah's and hearty laughter.
On the way home a little while later I commented to Silas and Sallie about how happy everyone was at the pond jumping.
"I read once," Silas said, "that people always give joy to others. Some by their coming. Some by their going."
"So people were happy to see Cory leave?" I asked. "Seemed to me he was pretty well liked, despite his pranks."
"He was," Sallie said. "I think everyone liked him very much."
"Especially the gals," Silas laughed.
"Well," I teased him, "I saw you being mighty friendly with him tonight."
"I was not!" Silas growled, then he smiled at Sallie and they winked at one another.
"The thing is, Honey," Sallie explained. "Goings are just a part of comings, and when you care for someone who's chosen to go somewhere else, you don't hold 'em back. You share their joy."
"Even if you miss them?" I asked.
"Especially if you miss them, Newbie," Silas said. "You don't miss something you don't love, and you wouldn't want to hold back someone you love from doing what they want, would you?"
"I suppose not," I said.
"Well, then," Silas said. "Where's the confusion?"
"But people are sad when they lose folks they love," I said. "That's only logical."
"Oh," Sally said. "That's very true. But you can be sad and happy at the same time, you know."
"I don't understand."
"That's because you've still stuck in that either-or silliness like so many people who are alive," Silas said.
"Now, whenever Silas goes out and gets himself killed, or one of us jumps in the pond before the other," Sally said, "Yes, sir, I do feel a lot of sadness. But I feel a lot of happiness, too. Just like Silas says, you wouldn't want to keep someone you love from getting where they're going, would you?"
I shook my head no, then said to Silas, "You ever just die of natural causes, or do you always get murdered?"
"Never mind."
"I mean, except for the plague," I persisted.
"Drop it, Newbie."
"He frequently gets hisself murdered, Honey," Sallie told me. "Wise people with the backbone to speak what they believe do tend to get caught in the crosshairs sometimes."
"Still," Silas said, "I probably need to pipe down a little. One does weary of getting beat, shot, lynched, and sliced up. Maybe I oughta just tone it down a little in the future."
"Up to you, Dear," Sallie said.
Late that night, before I fell asleep, I wondered what a toned down Silas would look like but I didn't think I'd enjoy being around him nearly as much as I did. I also doubted if he would know how to be any less than who he was.
One thing I had learned in my short time in eternity was that it was nearly impossible to not be who you are. One's spirit, Silas had taught me, haunts you, propels you, sustains you. What it doesn't do, he said, is abandon you. Your spirit, with very little fluctuating, remains pretty much stable throughout all your lives and all your eternities.
CHAPTER TWENTY