The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1883-04-04
THE COUNTRY DANCE.

sings out: Gilt your pardners for a
cowlillion," till the last swizzling
rustic has been satisfactorily thump
ed, thrown down stairs and the kero
sene lamps put out.
There is always one strawberry
blonde Timber Jim who Is the best
waltzer in the crowd and he won't let
an ordinary qualrilIe take place fine
can help Is in tina whole course of the
evening. His particular forte is
round dances, and be shifts like fox
hound and makes sarcastic remarks
and low filings when the master OF
ceremonies won't let him have his
way all tie time. He doesn't Gu,
much of a figure on week days loa6ng
around the stores and living on the
old folks, but lie is holy terror at
the country dance where he shines
Ike an oyster can in a mud hole.
Then there is the town belle with
two shilling fan and dollar store
gems. All tie young bucks want to
dance with her and she is in every
set and walks lauguidly through the
figures and snubs some of the tobac
co chewers by refusing to touch their
hands in the grand right and left,
and turns up her nose at the supper
in the hotel dining room and makes
everybody tired. Her hands are cold
and clammy and a man swinging her
half round thinks be has hold of a
piece of picked tripe. She can say
the softest things of any one outside
an asylum for feeble minded, but the
boys all encourage her by their in-
voluntary attentions until she just
wallows in taffy and back county CUFF
up to her eyes. She refuses every
offer of marriage for the first five or
six years after her society" debut,
and then falls back on the strawber.
ry blonde, wal,zing Jack, marries
him, and when the mortgage is FORE
closed On the old folks farm, and her
husband finds out that they cannot
support him any longer, he peters
out and leaves her with half dozen
children to rpise on the profits of a
sewing mrchine, which, by law, is ex-
empt from execution.
Then there is the homely fat girl
from away up the creek who came in
with her brother and has to depend
on her brother for what little of the
hop, skip and jump business she en-
joys. But she has lots of fun, sitting
OF in a cold corner and focking by
herself, wrapped up in a red and
black plaid shawl and chewing stick
cinnamon. She gets heated when she
dances with her brother, and swests
and shakes like jelly, and the boys in
her immediate vicinity notice very
strange aroma of bergamot and dish
water, which is a combination pecu-
liarly suggestive of wild, weird 70
nance and domestic utility.
Then there's the dissipated young
man who gets tight by 10 o'clock In
the evening and contests the seat of
some other member of the house and
tries to put head ON him, and is f.
nally licked by the prompter and
thrown out the window, leaving his
coat in the hands. of his enemies
Then there is the bald-headed fid-
dler who goes out between each set
and imbibes from a quart bottle, and
who along after supper plays one
strain of one tune over. and over un-
tll some of the dancers get ses.sick
and wantto kill him, and who mods
and then catches himself and heayes
% on the other tack, and braces up
or minute or two and fddles in
iouble time, and then dies away like
! clock running down, and finally
alls of his chair and runs one foot
n the horse fiddle and the other into
pane of glass in the window back
f him.
Then there is the middle aged bus
ness man, member of the church.
no drops in on his way home, just
see the dance, and who is attacked |
y the epidemic and dances one or
70 sets-just for fun-dances the
est of any one on the floor, and
lows that he's been thcre-and Who'll
churched the next Sabbath, and
cts up in meeting and confesses and
years of. We all know him, He
The policy" man of the village
le of that class who make money
ore oy professions than practice,
"a who won't do to tie to in a case
emergency Check.
-IHE London Tablet sets down
e number of Catholics in the Rrit.
b Empire and in the United States
l6,OOO,OO0 souls, with 1875, bish.