Richland beacon., 1888-09-15
OLD-TIME FESTIVITIES.
A Country Party in Canada In tho
Days of Long Ago.
From tho Toronto Globe.1


Did Won ever get IBID" to q danco
in the country mean real, home
made, fifth concession log house.
quarter of-a-century back country party.
A spree, o oe-down, neighborhood-
shaker Of the simple, ready, rongh,
pioneer days. Did, ehl Then yOu will
member that on the morning OF tho
day fixed for the party the board parti-
ton that ran across the middle OF the
house was pulled down.. and the beds
were piled in one corn, J. and the bunk
was showed up to the end OF the house
beside the stove, and tho stOut-ieggcd
kitchen table was planted against the
wall ut the other end of tho room, and
a stout-legged chair planted on tho
table, and to that chvir the fiddler WAS
elevated. and there he rolled his gray
old head from side to side, aud whisked
lightning from his elbow and fingered in
ecstatic frenzy and beat time with his
cowhide boot, and tho thrill and throb
of his eager music touched tho very
inner keys OF life and stirred the free
young blood and sOftsned the hardening
muscles and loosened the settled joints
Of age until the stove shook and tho
dishes ratified on the shelves, and tho
beat of the feet on the dancing floor WAS
like the crashing Of score of mallets,
deadened as by the sweep of q mighty
broom between. How they danced!
How the fellow who had few steps
shone and capered aud pounded the
floor with his cowhides. And how they
swung! Round and round, and round
and round, until the perspiration rolled
down the face and the breath sasped for
renewal of the lease. Tame and de-
generate days. They swing no more.
And they dance no more. The mighty
chatter OF the old Scotch reel, where the
old people unlimbered and shook of
the steps of youth, and the young
people gasped to keep pace with the
elders; and the opera reel-they called
it the upper reel-which the old folks
jig, where the youths one after the other
did their finest steps, and the girls did
the same, and you often got on the track
of liking or an incipient company
keeping by noting the time and circum-
stances under which some particular
girl elected to take the floor, and who
thus became the partner of her choice,
aud the same with the male end of the
performance, where tho out-out was
much more likely to have significance.
Do you remember that as o boy you
felt if you could grow up to call off
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 clerking
in store or even teaching school would
be nowhere; or perhaps you knew n
clerk who kept store and could call of
also, and you ached to grow up and be
ms great man as hel 1t is hardly
likely you knew a male teacher who
could dance much. Somehow the worry
in the teachers head over arithmetical
problems and the confusion of dates
and the cccentricities of parsing seemed
to get into the teachers feet when he
got on the floor, or, rs n native used to
put it in n place where l once lived, his
left foot wns Methodist and mixed him
up and disgraced him every time he
managed to get for partner n stranger
who hadn't been told how badly he
danced. 1t seems singular now when
YOU think of it that tho best dancers
among the boys were woodchoppers and
farmers and farm hands, while the best
among the girls were the daughters Of
hotel keepers and village merchants,
and very often the female teacher was n
mighty spry little thing on her feet, for
the reason that she was almost always
such a great favorite of the dancers of
the other persuasion that she couldn't
avoid holding the floor, and was dancer
in spite of herself The dances were
usually kept up until or even 5 o'clock
in the morning. and were then closed
with a stupendous breakdown, followed
Ivy m effort to get collection for the
fiddler. And these pioneer tiddlers were
shoekingly underpaid. Very often they
were not paid at all. They had the
gratitude and the appreciation of the
time in which they lived. But no more.
They fiddled through two generations,
hut the second did for them little better
than the first, and they passed down to
the grave miserably poor.