“Aw c’mon, Dinah. It’ll be fun.”

“Fun, my foot,” she said. “When you get a bright idea, I work hard and don’t have a bit of fun. Soon as your snooty friends show up, you forget about me.”

I cocked my head and smiled. She was right. But she was wrong that I would forget about her.

I hugged her and then I begged. “Please. It won’t happen again. I promise.”

Dinah looked at me and took a deep breath, her gaze never once leaving my face. I could tell she was weighing the situation to see if she should believe me.

“Okay, I’ll do it this time, but you better not ditch me like you did when that stuck-up Maggie Houser came over here. Why do you bother with such a phony piece of baloney?”

I hugged her again. “C’mon! Let’s get this show on the road.”

It took two days of our precious summer to launch our first musical show that would take place on the front porch of the playhouse Dinah’s daddy built for her. We were just beginning to learn that the playhouse was a special place where magical things happened.

Dinah and I argued over which songs to sing and who would get top billing. In the end, we drew straws to see which one of us would be the first to sing. It wasn’t me.

Dinah started the program off with a lively version of Swannee River, which she dedicated to Papa, our granddaddy’s favorite song. He’d paid the admission and stood proudly near the back edge of the yard with Roosevelt Smiley, the man who worked for him. Papa paid a quarter instead of two dimes and told us to keep the change. When Dinah finished singing, Papa clapped so hard his cigar flew right out of his mouth.

We didn’t think anything about Papa bringing Roosevelt with him. We were glad to see them both, knowing they would clap loud and long after each song. The Smiley’s had worked for our family since before Dinah and I were born, and Papa hardly ever went anywhere without Roosevelt by his side. Roosevelt wasn’t exactly family, but he was definitely Papa’s best friend. Sometimes Roosevelt drove our granddaddy around because Papa liked a little nip every now and then.

The gathering of kids and some of their mothers was buzzing when we peeked out of the side of our makeshift curtain. One of the mothers suddenly got up and left right after Papa arrived with Roosevelt. I overheard her say, “I thought this was for white people.” She said it as she passed the two men, and then she tossed her head and stuck her nose up in the air.

Papa started after her, but Roosevelt touched him gently on the arm and shook his head. “Don’ be studying her, Mist’ Tom. She ain’t worth your trouble.”

Papa looked at Roosevelt a long time, and then he shook his head. “You’re right, Roosevelt, but I can’t abide that kind of talk.” Papa put his arm around Roosevelt’s shoulder and they laughed together like it was all a big joke. After that, they settled down to watch the show.

Since I was partial to hymns, I chose Rock of Ages for my first song and got almost as much applause as Dinah’s Swannee River, but everybody knows that people clap loudest for that song. It wouldn’t be fittin’ for a good Southerner to do anything else.

Things were perking along pretty good when Dinah began to sing Camp Town Races. Before long, people were bobbing their heads and clapping and it was so much fun.

Prancing onto our make-shift stage, I cleared my throat. “For my next number, I will sing, Shall We Gather At the River. Feel free to sing along.”

So I was singing big as you please, and just as I hit a nice, round high “C” above middle “C,” Martha Anne Mixon’s beagle hound, which she insisted on bringing free of charge decided to sing a duet.

“Aoowwoooo, Aoowwoooo, Aoowwwoooo!”

I stopped singing, but Edisto, that was his name, continued to howl as though he had found his true singing partner. At first, everybody giggled. Then they laughed around in the grass.

I stood with my hands limp at my sides, mad as spit at Edisto for upstaging me. I figured Martha Anne would put a muzzle on him, but I could have stood there till I turned into a turnip. Martha Anne was laughing harder than anybody and made no move to make Edisto pipe down.

If that insult wasn’t big enough, T-3 Thompson got so tickled he let go of his sister’s pet rabbit he was supposed to have held on to. The rabbit bounced around from lap to lap like its legs were made out of Slinkys.

Boing! Boing! Boing!

My brother’s best friend, Jo-Jo grabbed a limp carrot from T-3’s pocket and held it in front of the rabbit as a tease. As soon as the rabbit lurched in his direction for the carrot, he tossed it to my smart-alecky brother.

Edisto kept on braying, Shall We Gather At the River while a ratty rabbit hopped all over the place and an out of control paying audience obviously didn’t give a hoot about my perfectly pitched “C” above Middle “C.”

My chin started quivering and my eyes began to fill up with tears. If that dog would just shut up, I thought, I’d still be able to finish the second verse of my hymn.

Dinah patted me on the shoulder and then walked off the porch heading directly over to where Martha Anne had collapsed in a fit of laughter, and where Edisto had transformed into a canine Caruso.

That was when I noticed the biggest bully of all time, Eugene Walker that we called Newgene behind his back. He had a speech impediment I always thought added to his natural meanness. I don’t know why we sold him a ticket, and probably wouldn’t have if we hadn’t been greedy.

When Dinah was almost in front of Martha Anne and Edisto, Newgene stuck out his big, fat foot.

She went sprawling on the ground right in the middle of a huge mud puddle. Splash! When she lifted her head, the ringlets Aunt Dottie had spent an hour curling into her hair that morning looked like wet moss. She had worn her favorite dress; a pink and white check with a white organdy pinafore over it, starched with a pinch or two of Argo.

Their maid, Minnie Mae, liked to eat Argo, so Dinah’s dresses, even though they were ironed, were limper than mine because of Minnie Mae’s strange taste for starch. After falling in the puddle, Dinah’s dress dripped like melting ice cream.

I scrambled to her side and then turned around and began attacking Eugene Walker. General Patton would have been proud. At that moment, Eugene was Hitler to me, and I still wonder about that to this day. I hit, scratched, bit, pinched and kicked. I wanted to see him cry like a baby.

But just as I was about to give him the black eye he deserved, Dinah jumped between us and stood, her hair dripping like wet moss, her white pinafore covered with mud.

“Don’t hit him,” she said. “He’s just a kid.”

I looked at her as though for the first time. “And what are you? Methuselah?” (Our family was Baptist, and like most people in Greenburg, we spouted Bible verses before we learned to read.)

I was about to ignore her when Papa stopped laughing and walked over to settle us all down.

“Whoa, now,” he yelled. “Eugene, what just happened?”

Newgene’s eyes got platter big.

“He’s a bully, Papa. He tripped Dinah and made her ruin her favorite dress!”

Newgene’s face turned crimson. “Sorry,” he mumbled but it wasn’t in me to forgive him. He would have to live many years before I forgave him. I ran from Dinah’s yard to my own, determined to never put on another show as long as I had breath in my body.

Long after the kids, their mamas and pets had gone home, I found Dinah sitting on the playhouse steps. She’d had a bath and washed her hair and was wearing a decent looking pinafore, a bit droopy around the ruffles thanks to Minnie Mae’s Argo appetite, but decent.

“What ‘cha doing,” I was still miffed that things went so sour.

She murmured. “Imagining.”

“Imagining what?”

She lifted the front of her clean pinafore and balled up a handful of it to form a pouch and shook it. It jangled. Grinning like a chessie cat, Dinah said, “We made a pile of money. I counted.”

“You’re gonna split wide open if you don’t tell me how much.”

“Enough for the picture show and two Snickers.”

The next day, we went to the Carolina Theater to see Margaret O’Brien in a sad movie and I fell in love with Robert Taylor.

My cousin’s playhouse is a sweet memory today. I don’t even know what became of it.

I wonder if other kids, pretend singers, stood like we did on a playhouse porch and sang to their baby dolls. Did they have sleepovers, rife with ghost stories and scary noises?

Do any adults remember living in imaginative worlds of their own making and think of those funny, scary, impossible dreams they created and watched come to life within the tiny walls of a backyard playhouse?

There is a playhouse in everybody’s life.