A Bloodsmoor Romance by Joyce Carol Oates Page B

thickness, it required but a single switch, looped about the crown of the head. Her eyes too were dark—dark, and bright, and intelligent, and restive, and given to that frequent expression of irony, which so distressed her family, and did little credit to Constance Philippa herself. When she made the effort, her voice possessed the melodiousness of any young lady’s voice; at other times, unfortunately, it was low, and graceless, and dry, and droll, and stirred some apprehension in her sisters, particularly in Octavia, as to whether, in fact, it was always Constance Philippa who spoke! —and not, upon occasion, a stranger.
    Many years ago, when Mr. Zinn was away at war, and sending heartfelt letters home to his family from Antietam, and Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, and Richmond, it was Constance Philippa (then but a very small miss, indeed) who most wanted to be at his side: and to be, in fact, a soldier, bearing arms against the “nasty Rebs!” During these sad years, which seemed all the more protracted, as so much sorrow, and apprehension, and unspeakable pain were involved, Mrs. Zinn made every effort to keep her little girls as merry as possible; and to prevent them from dwelling o’er much upon the fact that their belovèd father was absent and risking his precious life, that the Union should not be dissolved. Of course the little girls and their mother prayed together, on their knees, at least thrice daily; but, in the evenings, they greatly enjoyed themselves, gathered around the piano, singing Mother Goose songs, whilst Mrs. Zinn played, with as much spirit as she could summon forth. How warm, how merry, how delightful, these evenings in the parlor, so very long ago! Yet, even upon these frolicksome occasions, Constance Philippa exhibited a curious want of propriety, in her choice of song: her oft-requested favorite being not “Sweet Lavender,” or “The Fairy Ship,” or the e’erpopular “Hey Diddle Diddle,” or the lively “Yankee Doodle” and “Looby-Loo,” but, I am sorry to say, the cruel “A Fox Went Out”—soundly disliked by the other little girls, who declared that it was nasty, and, as sung by Constance Philippa, too loud for their ears.
    Yet Constance Philippa would beg Mrs. Zinn to play it, and she would get her way, and, standing straight and tall as a little miss of seven or eight might manage, she fairly shouted the words, her dark eyes aglow—
    A Fox went out on a starlight night
    And he pray’d to the moon to give him some light
    For he’d many miles to go that night
    Before he could reach his den O!
    He came at last to a farmer’s yard
    Where the ducks and geese declared it hard,
    That their sleep should be broken and their rest be marr’d
    By a visit from Mr. Fox O!
    Mr. Fox takes the poor gray goose by the sleeve, and, despite the valiant efforts of Old Mother Slipper Sloppers and her husband John, the goose is hauled away to Fox’s den, to seven little foxes, eight, nine, ten, who devour her without fuss or ceremony, whilst Constance Philippa’s sisters clapped their hands over their ears; and Octavia in particular thought the song very, very wicked, all the more so in that the quaint illustration showed Mr. Fox seizing Madame Goose who rather resembled Grandmother Kidde­master in her morning cap! “A very wicked song,” Octavia cried, “for why did not Baby Jesus intervene?”
    A decade later, and more, the eldest Miss Zinn, now an affianced young lady, oft found herself humming this old and near-forgotten nursery song beneath her breath, to her own surprise, and with some embarrassment. He took the gray goose by the sleeve , / Quoth he “Madame Goose, now, by your leave , / I’ll take you away without reprieve , / And carry you off to my den O!” —these uncouth words, adjoined to a most unseemly boisterous rhythm, running through her mind in the