Farley Williams drove up on most nights from Tempest’s Bog. He was the man who danced in the evenings from the time the sawmill closed until the bottoms of his feet ached. Every night his spot in front of Snooker’s pool hall was left for him. It seemed he had always been there, like he was born on that place so he could dance a shuffling kind of step that someone overseas had taught him back in 1910, in a club down on some island beach. He would sing too, until his voice lifted so high and loud that it would send him into a kind of whirligig, a step he had added, he said, because no one could teach you that kind of thing. It came from somewhere else. The women from Church in the Dell said it was from Satan, but Farley would not say yea or nay. He’d just hold out his cup until the person asking what made him dance in such a way would give up the wait and toss in a penny and leave him alone. As long as he kept his gift a secret, people would pay for the chance to try and dig the truth out of him.
