Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1889-05-02
AN Old TIME DANCE.
How the Bellies and Beaux of 1889
Enjoyed Themselves.

Just ready for publication, describes Il
dance which occurred near Salem in
1889. The extract is as follows:
The young people of hundred years
ago certainly knew how to enjoy them
selves. Here We're more than fifty gay
couples, each lad and each maid dressed
and well dressed for winter; here We're
more than fifty gay horses or spans of
horses, who enjoyed the frolic as much
as those who drove them. Here was an
innocent earth white with innocent
snow" and over it heaven of unspotted
and unclouded blue. The country rolls
q little, just enough to vary from second
to second the simmer of the bright sun
ON the sparkling frost. There was
forest enough, and not too much
enough for the cheerful suggestion of
life and strength and shelter which in
variably belongs to the grave, good
natured, hospitable eyergreens, while
through open fields and with long after
noon shadows the merry party could
scamper ON. Sometimes they shouted
to each other. Sometimes one sleigh
struck up song, and the neighbors,
before and behind, took it up, and in
long trailing fugue it ran ON the voices
of half mile of singers. More often.
what Lady Delacour called propinquity
did its perfect work, and the two part
ners said aloud to each other what they
need not whisper, and talked of one or
another trihe, or of one or another of
the eternities. More easily than they
could have talked were they looking
into each others faces, or were there
any possibility of any listener.
And so in an hour and half of the
liyeliest life which can be conceived, the
gay young party, driving always north
in the bright afternoon, came to the hill
ON which Ipswich stands, and, almost
for the first time, the drivers drew rein
little, as the horses walked up to
Squire Beers tavern. The sun was
Just setting in the unclouded west, and
as one after another of the ladies was
almost lifted from the sleigh by her
cavalier, the patty grouped together to
watch the daily wonder as the red ball
sank down behind the hills. For a
moment only, and then they all rushed
into the open halls of the great tavern,
and welcomed the preparations which
had been made for them.
No one had forgotten to send word to
Mr.. Beers. Bellies might have been
forgotten, but not the entertainment
for the evening. A messenger had in
formed him the day before that a party
of the gayest and brightest and best of
Salem would be there, and half Ipswich
had been at work to make the proper
preparation. There was fire OF oak in
every fireplace of every room. In the
hall there stood great pitchers Of flip,
which only needed 10 lie heated; and III
the great fireplace of the corner room,
which was a sort Of room of entrance,
were dozen pokers ut white heat wait
ing to be used at the moment of arrival.
As one girl after another was led in by
her attendant he took her TO one or
another of the tables on which these
great pitchers of sweetened cider, per
haps with little spirit, stood, and one
or another laughing attendant brought
the heated poker and plunged it in.
No girl thought that she did anything
wrong as She slipped from the hot cup
which her attendant poured out for her
There would be some joking about a
little ashes, more or less, which stuck,
perhaps to her red nose or fingered on
her lip; but it was a generation
before the time when any one
would have said to her that she was
any law, human or divine, as (
she refreshed herself. After this vel I
come the girls scattered to places where I
they were led by the ready maidens of /
the tavern and threw off and piled up
the wraps in which they had been pro
tected, appearing like so many butter
flies coming ont of their winter homes, /
in all the lightncss of muslin and its
ready for the dance in the
great hall. At each end of the hall was
i fire of oak logs, which had been kept (
going since early morning, 50 that there
was not the slightest chill in the room.
The whole party were in tip-top spirits.
They were lust cold enough be
ready to dance to warm their feet.
They had breathed in ozone, or oxygen,
Of whatever 1t is that gives life, till
every nerve and pulse was aglow. All
or iealousies with which
ihey might have started were forgotten,
md they had and knew they had before
hem hours upon hours OF exmlaratlon.
1t will not do, after hundred years,
10 try to explain to the decorous modern
'eader how the partners We're selectedor
now they were changed after they We're
selected. Suffice it to say that by the
generous equality of democracy, which
aas taken the place of the condeseensiVn
# anti-revolutionary times, the ladies
rev lots for the head of the dance. For
certain purposes connected with the
lance similar lots were then drawn for
he gentlemen, and as everybody knew
there were no inconvenience
n this arrangement. But it soon APP
Feared that, by processes which need
rot be explained to this reader, the right
gentleman and the right lady danced
With each other pretty much as they
would, and the arbitrary decision of the
OF did not make any contretemps, while
t did make good deal of good-natured
un.
But it is no part Of this little story to
20 into the ms and outs of the various
lances of that jolly afternoon. The twi
light, of course, fell almost at once. Mr..
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