John Stevens' Courtship: A Story of the Echo Canyon WarGates, Susa Young
General
John Stevens' Courtship: A Story of the Echo Canyon War
Gates, Susa Young
Latter Day Saints -- Fiction; Utah Expedition (1857-1858) -- Fiction
"Here is a good floor which we have prepared expressly for your
enjoyment, there are two other boweries for the mothers and their
children, and here are three bands of musicians, together with
our Nauvoo Brass Band and Brother Huntington's Martial Band. The
Springville band and the Ogden band will both assist Professor Ballo
who has charge of the great orchestra provided for dancing. Before we
have our evening prayers, Professor Ballo will favor us with one of his
classical selections,--'what do you call it, Brother Ballo?'" asked
the President calmly, across the pavilion, and the musician flushed
slightly as he responded from the opposite platform:
"It is the Overture to Tancreda," profusely bowing in his embarrassment.
And with that the band struck up the exquisite strains of that tuneful
offering to youth and courage, while the people listened with well
placed musical sympathy, to this unusual burst of melody, in the virgin
solitudes of this sylvan vale. The very hills took up the theme of that
lovely opera by Rosinni, and echoed and re-echoed the fine harmony with
all the Silver Lake's famous echo.
As the massive form of the President's Counselor, Heber C. Kimball,
stepped out to offer the evening prayer for that happy camp, sweet
Ellen's soul sang and sang the words of the prayer into the straining
melody of the Overture to Tancreda, but alas, Ellen's music was hidden
in her soul and had not been taught to find expression on her lips, or
from her finger-tips.
After prayers, the people dispersed to their tents to finish
preparations for rest, or to join in dance and song around camp fires
or in the great boweries.
At the Winthrop tent, Rachel was completing her camp arrangements.
"Just see 'Enry B'yle 'ang 'round Di," muttered Dian's brother Harvey
to his chums as they carried bundles and boxes from the wagons to the
tents, "He is too fine to chop and dig; he leaves that to John and
father."
"I'm going to tell mother to set him to work, said Lucy, who at once
ran to put her threat into execution.
"Miss Diantha, what can I do to help you?" asked the gallant young
man, on receiving the hint from frank Rachel Willis. Thereupon he took
bundles and parcels from the girl, she laughing again and again at his
awkward attempts to be useful around a camp fire.
The camp-fires, now began to shoot steady flames into the darkening
sky; the squeak, squeak of the fiddles was answered by the toot of the
brass horns, and martial and stringed bands united their forces in
loud, triumphant invitations to "dance."
And how they danced! Old and young, short and tall, fat and slim--the
temporary floor groaning and shivering beneath the hundreds of merry,
flying, stamping feet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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