As they came in sight of the farmhouse, which was lit up from cellar to garret, they saw that the sleigh loads of relatives and neighbors had just arrived. They hurried in, and a few minutes later were introduced all around. “Make yourselves at home,” said Henry Akers, Sarah’s husband. “I’ve heard o’ the service you did my father-in-law, and I am as thankful as he is that his barn wasn’t burnt down.” The fiddler and the harpist were stationed in a corner of the broad hallway, and the sitting-room and the kitchen had been cleared for dancing. Soon the lively strains of a Virginia reel broke the ice all around and set everybody to talking and laughing. “Choose partners fer the reel!” shouted the master of ceremonies, a village dandy, who had a chrysanthemum as large as a saucer stuck in his buttonhole. “Good gracious, I can’t dance!” whispered Andy, and off he ran to a corner and was soon talking and laughing with a crowd of boys and girls. Boxy joined him, and they managed to have a real good time until supper. Harry and Jack found two pretty country girls of about their own age willing to dance, and joined the two lines that were forming at the head of the sitting-room. Soon nearly everybody in the house was in line, old Job Brodhead and his wife leading off. Once again the fiddler and the harp player tuned up and started the reel, and away the dancers went, one couple after the other, forward and back, forward and around, forward and join hands, and all the rest of it. Some mistakes were made, and it grew mighty warm toward the end. But nobody minded this, and all laughed and cracked jokes, and when, nearly an hour later, the reel was ended, every one was on the best possible terms with every one else. “I’ll slip down to the barn and see how Pickles is making out,” whispered Harry, and off he went, leaving Jack to entertain the girls they had danced with. Harry found the colored youth in his glory. Pickles had brought his banjo along, and was entertaining the other colored people and the farm hands with plantation songs and tunes. It was not long before word was sent from the farmhouse to come up and entertain the others. And Pickles had to go. In the meantime cider was flowing, and apples and nuts were passed around on all sides. About eleven o’clock the kitchen was cleared, and the older women went to work to set the tables for supper. After the reel came other dances in the sitting-room and hall--waltzes, quadrilles and the like, and Harry and Jack and two of the young ladies who had been to dancing school danced the latest two-step, while the older folks looked on.