The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1905-06-23

a table in the library were decanters OF
whiskey and brandy with sugar and
lemons, for the old men, exposed to a
cold night outside, and kept up late BIZ
the festivities. Ii was an unwritten
law that the doc of the library was
no thoroughfare to the young men,
who were not supposed TO need the
stimTlant Of whiskey and they scru-
pulOGsly respected the reservation.
The sitting room, a very large apart
ment, was given up to dancing, the car
pet and furniture, except chairs, har-
ing been removed. The orchestra was
over III one corner, consisting of old
Romeo and an assistant, a negro boy,
about twenty years old, tall and slim,
whom | knew for many years, and
whom | never heard speak "a word in
all my life-he just fiddled, and he
knew now to do that.
Romeo was a ginger-cake colored ne
gro, with a short gray m%oustache, as
polite as my Lord Grandson, always
neatly dressed in a blue sack-coat and
a white waistcOast, and he was the
only African with whom l ever had
the pleasure of an acquaintance, with
a hooked nose. His violin had a ham
die or knob painted yellow, which he
always called my yellow knob" and
he was thorough master of it. Romeo
played and called the figures at the
same time, the latter wholly by ear,
for he never had time to look at the
performers on the floor, so busy was
he in getting the music out of himself
by all sorts of ~contOrtiOns and gymnaS-
tics. He would bend owe until his
face almost touched the floor, scraping
the bow all the time, n then he
would straighten up with his head
thrown far back, stamp. his foot and
fire the command, "Swing corners all"
like a shot from a gun. The longer the
dance the more vigorous and impas.
stone he became, until, along about
the time for the closing Virginia reel,
he would break out into snatches of
song, in a soft, melodiOus tenor:
20, Malinder, my honey-dear, Malin-
der,
You warm my heart, you does, my
dear,
And make it jist like tinder!!"
Or wit hthis:-
I'm a-comin' to your house, I'm a.
comm;
Jist hear dis fiddle sound!
I'm a-cOmin' to yOu house, I'm a
comm;
Gents and ladies, hands all Toundr.' y
In the dance at that home-marriage
III 1850, | remember only one dress
suit, worn 10y the bridegroom, but
tehre were certain little social obsery-
ances, perhaps deemed at the present
day ANTICIPATED. A young man asked
d girl to dance with the most ceremo-
NOUS of bows, and led her out by the
hand to their place on the floor like a
subject doing homage to his queen.
The waltz was given in the intervals of
the quadrilles, when Romeo, a changed
being, sat in a chair as stiff and digni.
fed as Don QuiXote, with the on
seriousness of one about to interpret
Strauss; but only relatives and very
intimate friends took part in this
round dance"
Now and then, in this first decade Of
the twentieth century, a sweet-faced
matron with silver hair Ian honOred
guest among the spectators, can be
seen at an up-to-date german; and here
and there a bald-headed buck with
eyeglasses will circle around the
cancers telling the pretty girls how
he was wont to foot it" with their
mothers in Fayetteville Hall more than
forty years agO-but, alas! most of the
IeauX and bellies of that time are rest
ing now quietly enough in the beauti-
full elm-sheltered burying-ground ON
the banks of Cross Creek.
And thus twill be, nor long the day
When we, like them, shall pass away;
O sun, that now our bosom warns
Shall shine, but shine on other forms"
What, "weeping-ripe," old man, yer
your pen and paper, because your
youth has gone, like a dream that is
past and a tale that is told? Because
your joints are stiff. shall there be no
more jig-making? Yea, verify.
=
| doubt if there is q town in the
world whose very business centre, the
very heart of its life, is more striking
and spectacular han the plaza or Mar
ket square of Fayetteville on Saturday
afternoon. By 3 O'Clock the wood-sell-
ers have disposed of their loads, the
t~ruck-dealers have sold out their fruit
and vegetables, and the auctiOneerS
have cried off their wares, taken down
tIiOII JULIUS dhu -ACu hdSS, dIiu oAC
counting up their commissions. A
wholly different population from that
Of the morning begins to crowd the
pavement, and dot the plaza with lit
tie groups. The butchers ply their
knives and axes now with all their
skill, their stalls thronged with opera
tives from the silk and cotton mills,
foundries, etc, all carrying baskets for
beef, mutton, veal, ham and other sup
plies; on the southeast side of the
square,, at the open-air fish market,
Perry, the fshmonger, with a voice
like a fog-horn, booms out: Right on
down the line for trout, shrimps, null
lets, p-a-n-f-i-s-h, cl-a-a-ms!
Now the crowd thickens of buyers
| and l~Oafers, white and black, and an
indefinable but u~nmistakable influence
| begins to assert itself perceptibly
| among those hundreds of people. 1t is