The Falls City tribune., 1909-12-17

worshiping people, the mass of whom,
to my certain knowledge, we're mem
bers of some one or other of the var
ious Christian denominations, which,
then as now, were established in
every part of the country. But
Christmas has a world. n people and
n language of its own. and so is dis
tinguishable from all other days in
the year. This may account for that
inexplicable metamorphosis it works
in the men of the ordinary all the
year round yariety-something does
it. and when We know what il is we
will know many other things which
now appear mysterious. :.
And now a word about the crown.
ing function of those festivities, the
country dance. Dancing anne into
vogue when man did, and will only
cease from the world when man him
self does, and therefore cannot be
said, truthfully, to be wicked. 1t is
the physical expression of joyous
contentment and happy exhiliration.
Nobody dances at a funeral. nor in
a church. Time, place and circum-
stance have everything to do with
the exercise, and the time and place
| now speak of, was sixty years ago,
and In one of the rural districts of a
western state. | was too young to par
ticipate in the dance, but not too
youthful to witness its execution by
others; and though | cannot recall
any particular occasion, | distinctly
remember them as a class, for one
was an exact duplicate of all the
others. 1t was a young peoples
affair, girls and boys, who danced
themselves into still closer relations,
and in time produced other. girls and
boys to do likewise in their day, and
thus did their part, as their descend
ants are doing, as unconscious actors
in the comedy of life.
The place having been selected,
at an early hour in the evening the
whole youthful population in respect
able standing, assembled for the oc-
casion decked out in their smartest
Sunday clothes, and the fun began,
not to end till broad daylight next
morning. Many a girl went home
next day, the promised wife of some
lusty young fellow, and before the
next Christmas, had ceased from the
ranks of the dancers, and been sue
ceeded by others that are forever
recruited out of the mysterious inn
perceptable. The ranks are always
full. The cotillion, the quadrille, the
Virginia reel, and the old-fashioned
"hoe-doWn," was the varied order
of the nights gayeties, and every
body entered into the spirit of the
occasion with an earnest zest that
meant business. But the music? Yes,
that was the chief feature And by
the way. | have often wondered why
people can't trip about, jump up
and down and all that, without the
aid of some kind of harmonious noise,
age danced to the music of the Tom
Tom, while our people trip the light
fantastic. TO the scream Of the fiddle,
or if in the halls of the very rich, a
whole band of thunderous music, but
results in all modes, are just the same,
the lords and ladies of misrule have
exercised their shanks, gracefully or
otherwise, and that is all there is of
it.
In the case in hand, the ~neighbor-
hood musician was an old darby, who
had drifted in from somewhere sew
eral years before my time, and had
become a fixture in the community.
There was a suspicion afloat that he
might have been a runaway slave
from the South, but as no one put in
a claim to him-and it would have
come to nothing if they had, for the
people lnefedDOul Woulu nave lOuShe
for him to the death-the notion grad.
ually died out, and the old fellow
lived the balance of his days among
them. He was a fiddler of the prim-
alive order, that is, he could play
some old tunes by ear, and was in
constant reuuisition at dances for a
considerable distance around. | have
heard him many 4 time, both at frol.
ics-that was the neighborhood name
for dances,-and in his cabin where
he lived alone, and where | used to-
go to hear him play on his fiddle. which
looked as old and weather beaten as
himself.
At the %frolics, he played and called