Great Son by Edna Ferber

Author:Edna Ferber [Ferber, Edna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-345-80613-0
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2014-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

They did not like it. By the time she had reached the chorus the second time they began to stamp out the rhythm with their great boots.

“You stamp belong to the stamp, stamp, stamp

You’re stamp a stamp, stamp, stamp.

You’re stamp …”

Now her voice was lost in the noise. They began to clap it:

“Many a clap stamp stamp clap clap clap

But stamp stamp clap clap clap

. . . . . . .”

You could see she was singing, for her lips formed words. The beat of the drums came through, throb, throb, with the muffled sound of a death march.

“Come off, you fool!” shrieked Hap Frazer from the piano in the pit.

“Stay on! Finish it. God damn ’em, finish it! That’s the girl! Stick!” Chet Dare bellowed from the wings right.

The drummer girls were pasty white beneath their make-up; they stared left, they stared right, mouths open, eyes round. Pansy, bedecked in flags and bunting, stood her ground, her lips stiffly obeying her will. She looked big and awkward and very plain and terribly frightened. Beyond the wretched smoky lamps that were the footlights she saw a gigantic figure rise and clamber roughshod over the others seated in his row. He strode down the aisle; he leaped catlike to the stage as though propelled by a springboard. He did not approach Pansy. She went on with her song to the end, like an automaton that is wound and that must go until it runs its course. Words. Words. And sounds coming from the back of her throat.

“Uncle Sam will take off his hat

[She took off her wretched headgear]

To you, Mister Volunteer.”

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