Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-02-11
A GEORGIA SCENE.
How the Boys and Girls Used to Amuse
Themselves in Ye Olden Time

How the Boys and Girls Used to Amuse
Themselves in Ye Olden Time.
After the writer had grown some older
and had been regularly adopted in the
family of 1--WE uns'' and ran with the
boys he was allowed all the privileges of
the young men of the community and
was told to consider himself at home,
which he did with good will. On a
certain occasion it was decided by the
young ladies and gentlemen to have q
frolic at j. WIS, and was warned to be
on hand with few pounds of sugar for
sweetening and a couple of skeins of
silk for fiddle strings. Strings were
scarce about here then and they asked
you quarter piece for them. I was
on hand at the time appointed with the
sweetenings and the silk and ready to
60 after my 'gal.'' 1t was different
then from now. If you carried no part
ner with you. you had to take the
chances, as every man had the exclusive
right to his own partner. When 1 got
there she was ready with a new home
spun dress which had never been worn.
l, of course, praised the check, and the
stripe, and the fit. 1t only took six
yards of cloth to make a girl dress those
days. But she announced that she was
ready to start and out we went. l jumped
upon Bark Mill. She lit up behind me
and caught a good hold. And that pony
might rear, but she was there if
did not come off. Away we went,
and came in sight of j. WIS about
shutdown. The crowd was gathering in
rapidly, but no fun had commenced. AS
we rode up some of the girls sung out:
"Now we will have some fun. Here
comes J. and his gal.
NY partner rolled off like bag of
rolls. I tied my pony to a fresh sap
ling and we went in. The girls all
yelled out:
''Why, here comes j." like they did
not know I was coming, and that was
always on hand at every frolic.
s'Now we will have reel" they
said. ''Did you bring the silk?''
Certainly. Did you ever know me
to fail?''
The old lady wanted to know where
the sweetening was, as she wanted it
for the gals" W. B. spoke up and
said by all means give it to the 'sgals;'
we would get it back in kissing them.
We took our partners, away went the
fiddle and on went the dance-a long
one. We danced for awhile and then
we would play awhile. ''Old Sister
Pheby, johnny Brown, :" '.It rains and
it halls" ''The London bridge is break
ing down." and 1.-The big cat kicked
out the little cats eye'' were
among the favorite plays. The
beauty of it was every play
wound up with rain of kisses. 1t was
a glorious frolic. The kissing made all
hands feel like they were at home. The
writer made small mistake and liked
to have caused trouble by merely an
oversight. We were playing a play
where kissing was mixed up smartly.
One young lady was using tobacco and
snuff freely. Her toothbrush was in her
mouth and little stream of amber ran
down at each corner. I kissed her on
the cheek. She stopped the song and
yelled out:
y. is not playing fair. He kissed me
on the cheek
I begged her pardon and meekly asked |
her to hold her face around. Doing so
I bussed her squarely in the mouth. You |
might have heard the echo quarter.
But this restored peace and the frolic
went on. w. B. was in his right ele-
ment. He called all the sets and ar
ranged all the couples. No frolic could
get on without him. Uncle Jack was
there, too, and along toward the morn
ing hours he wanted to dance. We be-
gan to see signs of red-eye. Men began
getting noisy, dancing stronger and bet
ting on their manhood, and finally
wound up in little row; but with a few
skinned heads and some bruises, about
day all made for their partners and car
ried them home to think and fix for an
other frolic soon.-Frasskly7s (Ga.)
Neacs.