About nine o'clock in the evening, and after "supper," as Mrs. Sonora called it, had passed off, Ike inquired of me if my fiddle was in the house, as he intended to have Squire Longbow, Aunt Sonora, Mrs. Bird, Swipes, and "all hands," dancing before the company broke up.
The fiddle was produced--rather an asthmatic instrument--that strayed into the country among my lumber, and was somewhat out of order. Ike tinkered it up with his jack-knife, until it finally emitted a few strains of something like music. He then played "Over the Hills," "Fisher's Hornpipe," and several other lively airs, until old Squire Longbow unconsciously began to rap the time with his heels, and Mrs. Bird to grow quite nettlesome.
Ike finally bowed himself up to Mrs. Bird, sawing away all the time on his fiddle--and declared that "nothing on airth would do him so much good as a country dance, and she must consent to walk straight out without wincing." Mrs. Bird looked pleased and provoked, by turns, but she finally took Ike's arm, and was duly placed on the floor. Squire Longbow and Mrs. Sonora were next hauled out by Ike; Mrs. Swipes and Sile Bates, and so on, until he had united (with the exception of Squire Longbow and partner) the most discordant elements of Puddleford.
The dance opened, Ike himself fiddling, shuffling, and calling off. He and Mrs. Bird went down in the middle, up outside, and crossed over, Ike's feet playing all the while like drum-sticks to the music of "Fisher's Hornpipe," which he was sawing off with inconceivable rapidity, while Mrs. Bird followed after him, panting and blowing, without much regard to time or tune.
Squire Longbow and Mrs. Sonora trotted through their parts--Mrs. Sonora having declared, before she took the floor, "that she never was one of them are dancing critters, but she'd try and hobble through the figger the best she could."
By and by the general "wind-up" came, when "all hands" went into it heart and soul. Ike's fiddle, and Ike's voice, and the pattering of feet, were all that was heard. "Right and left!" "Cross over!" "Don't run agin Mrs. Bird, Squire Longbow!" "A leetle faster, Mrs. Swipes!" "_Pardners_ keep clus arter one another!" "Don't cave!" "Not quite so much cavortin' down thar!" exclaimed Ike, giving expression to his words with his bow, when at last he drew the whole to a close by a long, high squeak, and the company rushed to their seats puffing, and covered with perspiration.