The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-01-09
mates they will probably all be singing at
the tops of their voices


the tops of their voices,
.Humpty- Dumpty sat the wall;
Humpty-Dumpty got great fall"
The cat will go on playing the fiddle, the
COW jumping over the moon, and Little
Jack Homer will continue to sit in the cor
ner abstracting the prunes from the Christ
mas pastry and making favorable remarks
relative to his own saintliness, in spite of
all the Mother Truths whose consciences
may set them to the task of feeding the
juvenile intellect upon buildings made Of
sawdust cut from the hard timber of dry
fact.
But childhood is such a folklore world
that one can but barely touch it's border
and pass by, if he would not lose himself in
the labyrinths of apparently meaningless
and incoherent rhymes and plays, which are.
in fact, imperfect and fragmentary survivals
from the flower and romance of former ages.
Passing from childhood to youth, the peri
cd of romance and love-making and CASTLE
building, we find the very web end wool of
! its newness and hopeful anticipation full of
the many-colored threads that the past has
spun; and here, again, the old methods and
the old songs, or modern variations or imi-
tations of them, are dominant alike in city
and country. OF plays, dances, songs and
kindred amusenents there is seemingly no
end, but such large per cents. of the whole
are but the variants of things gone before
that one is tempted to cry out with the wise
man that even in the realm of youth and
beauty there is nothing new under the
sum-
The quadrilles. Virginia reels, break
downs and other dances peculiar to the
South were introduced into the new country
north of the Ohio soon after the first set
tiers from that section arrived. They were
the dances of the South of the descendants
of the cavaliers and not survivals from
those of the earlier French occupation. The
old-time violinists, their tunes and calls
might well furnish theme to some author
who knew them and understand, them and
possesses the sympathetic genius to paint
them as they were, without any disparage-
ment from the culture of the present, and
thus place them in their proper inches in
the ideal temple of our folklore. Such old
melodies as Money Musk Fishers
Hornpipe," Devils Dream" "Old Smoky
Mountain" and all the lively, rollicking
swarm of their contemporaries and rela-
tons are, even now, more acceptable to
the people than the most studied produc-
tons of the masters
Fifty and sixty years ago the singing and
marching plays were in great vogue in all
our country places They seem TO have been
adopted a sort of compromise between
the church people OF the early times, who
were uncompromisingly hostile to dancing,
and those who favored it, but were ready
to sanction any form of amusement that
brought the young people together and af-
forded respectable enjoyment. Many of
these old marching songs were, in the first
place, dancing songs, or songs to which
the players alternately danced and marched,
as the one that ran thus
Dancing on the green grass, dust, dust,
dust;
Come all We pretty fair maids and dance
along with us,
And if you are so handsome as I've taken
you to be,
I'll take you by your little white hand.
Come, go along with me-.
And it's Q, come go along with me-"
Or as this:
Round and round the green sugar tree,
Round and round the green sugar tree,
Round and round the green sugar tree,
On cold and frosty morning.
Say, pretty belle won't your beau come,
Say, pretty belle, won't your beau come,
Say, pretty belle, won't your beau come,
And join us In our dancing?
In the early West. however. this class of
plays were usually under marching
! ORDERS if for no other reason. because so
few. comparatively. of the country lads and
lassies who gathered at the old-time quilt
ing bees, corn huskings. apple parings and
wool pIckings were instructed even in the
simplest cotillions Of the period. The