The Daily times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1886-1889, 1888-09-23
AN Old TINE zoe DOWN"
a Country Party in Canada In the Days
of Long Ago.

Did you ever get q bid to dance in
the country mean a real, home made,
fifth concessions, log house, quarter of a
century back country party. y spree. a
hoe down. a neighborhood shaker of the
simple, ready. rough, pioneer days. Did,
CHI Their YOU will remember that on the
morning Of the day fixed for the party
the board partition that ran across the
middle OF the house was pulled down, and
the beds were piled in one corner. and
the bun. was showed up to the end of the
house beside the stove, and the stout
legged kitchen table was placed against
the wall at the other end of the room, and
a stout legged chair planted on the table.
ard to that chair the fiddler was elevated.
and there he rolled his gray old head
from side to side, and whiskel lightning
from his elbow and fingered in ocst2tic
frenzy and beat time with his cowhide
boots, and the throb of his eager music
touched the very inner keys Of life and
stirred the young blood and softened the
hardening muscles and loosed the settled
Joints Of age until the stove shook and
the dishes ratified on the shelves and the
beat of the feet on the dancing floor was
like the crashing of score of mallets,
deadened as by the sweep of a mighty
broom between.
How they danced How the fellow
who had few steps shOne and capered
and pounded the floor with his cOwhides
And how they swung Round and round,
and round and round. until the perspira-
ton rolled down the face and the breath
gasped for a renewal of the lease. Tanned
and degenerate days. They swing no
more. And they dance no more. The
mighty clatter Of the old Scotch reel
where old people uniimbered and shook
off the steps Of youth. and the young
people gasped to keep pare witt, the
elders; and the opera reel-they called
it the upper reel-which the old folks
also invaded: ana then the cutting out
iig, where the youths one after the
other did their finest steps, and the girls
did the same, ami you often got on the
track of liking or an incipient COM
pany keeping ty noting the time and
circumstances under which some par
ticular girl selected to take the floor. and
who thus became the partner Of her
choice, and the same with the male end
of the performance, where the cut out
was much more likely TO have a signlh-
canoe.
Do you remember that as a hoy YOU
felt if YOU could grow up to call of
dances. or perhaps call Off and play the
fiddle at the same time, as you once
knew man do. and whose image lived
in your memory for weeks, that cierking
in a store or even teaching school would
be nowhere: or perhaps you know a clerk
who kept store and could call Off also,
and YOU ached to grow up and Zoe as
great man as hes It is hardly likely
YOU knew a male teacher wh) could
dance much. Somehow the wouy nm
the teachers head over agitamcticai
problems and the confusion Of dates and
the cccenuicities Of parsing seemed ID
get into the teachers fcel when De got
on the floor, or, as q native used 10 put
it in place where | once lived. his left
foot was Methodist and mixed him up
and disgraced him every time be man
aged to get for q partner q stranger who
hadn't been told how badly he danced.
1t seems singular now, when you think
Of il, that the best dancers among the
bows were woodchopper5 and farmers and
farm hands, while the best among the
girls were the daughters of hotel keepers
and village merchants, and very often the
village teacher was mighty spry little
thing on her feet, for the reason that sho
was almost always such a great favorite
Of the dancers Of the other persuasion
that she couldn't avoid holding tlie floor,
and was dancer in spite OF herself.
The dances were usually kept up until 4
or even O'Clock in the morning, and
were then closed with a stupendous
breakfast, followed BY an effort 60 get
collection for the fiddler. And these
pioneer fiddlers We're shockingly under
paid, Very often they were not paid at
all They had the gratitude and the ap-
probation of the time in which they lived
But no more. They fiddled through two
generations, but the second did for them
little better than the first, and they passed
down to the grave miserably poor
Toronto Glo0e.