Short stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
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. There are two things that you simply have to do at the County
Fair, or you aren't right sure you've been. One is to drink a glass of
sweet cider just from the press, (which, I may say in passing, is an
over-rated luxury. Cider has to be just the least bit “frisky” to be
good. I don't mean hard, but “frisky.” You know). And the other is to
buy a whip, if it is only the little toy, fifteen-cent kind. On the
next soap-box to the old fellow that comes every year to sell pictorial
Bibles and red, plush-covered albums, the old fellow in the green
slippers that talks as if he were just ready to drop off to sleep--on
the next soap-box to him is the man that sells the whips. You can buy
one for a dollar, two for a dollar, or four for a dollar, but not one
for fifty cents, or one for a quarter. Don't ask me why, for I don't
know. I am just stating the facts. It can't be done, for I've seen it
tried, and if you keep up the attempt too long, the whip-man will lose
all patience with your unreasonableness, and tell you to go 'long about
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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