M-hm.
The fiddler "called off" and chanted to the tune, with his mouth
on one side: "Sullootch podners! First couple forward and back.
Side couples the same. Doe see do-o-o-o. Al-lee-man LEFT!
Ballunce ALL! Sa-weeny the corners!" I don't know whether I get
the proper order of these commands or not, or whether my memory
serves me as to their effect, but it seems to me that at "Bal-lunce
ALL!" the ladies demurely teetered, first on one foot and then on
the other, like a frozen-toed rooster, while the gents fairly tore
themselves apart with grape-vine twists and fancy steps, and slapped
the dust out of the cracks in the floor. When it came to "SaWEENG
your podners!" the room billowed with flying skirts, and the ladies
squealed like anything. It made you a little dizzy to watch them
do "Graaan' right and left," and you could understand how those
folks felt - there were always one or two in each set - who had to
be hauled this way and that, not sure whether they were having a
good time or not, but hoping they were, their faces set in a sickly
grin, while their foreheads wrinkled into a puzzled: "How's that?
I didn't quite catch that last remark" expression. I don't know
if it affected you in the same way that it did me, but after I had
stood there for a time and watched those young men and women thus
wasting the precious moments that dropped like priceless pearls
into the ocean of Eternity, and were lost irrevocably, young, men
and women giving themselves up to present enjoyment without one
serious thought in their minds as to who was going to wash the
supper dishes, or what would happen if the house took fire while
they were away I say I do not know how the sight of such reckless
frivolity affected you, but I know that after so long a time my
face would get all cramped up from wearing a grin, and I'd have to
go out and look at the reapers and binders to rest myself so I
could come back and look some.
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