“We used often to dance about a May-pole when I was a girl in Barnstable,” said Mrs. Starkweather. “To be sure it is an old English custom, and just now England does not seem our friend, but ’Tis a pleasant custom that we do well to follow. I know a little song that we all used to sing as we took hold of the bright streamers.”
“I know that song,” said Dannie; “you call it ‘May Song.’”
“Why, yes,” said Mrs. Starkweather, “I’m sure all my boys know it. I’ve sung them all to sleep by it; and ’Tis one I sing about my work, for ’Tis a cheerful and a merry lilt.”
“It goes this way,” said Dannie, and began to sing:
| “Birds in the tree; Humming of bees, Wind singing over the sea; Happy May-days, Now do we praise, As we dance gladly round the May tree.” |
As Dannie sang his mother and brothers joined in with him, and the other children listened in delight.
“Can you not sing it when we do ‘dance round the May tree,’ Aunt Starkweather?” asked Anne; “and if Dannie will sing it over to us a few times I am sure that we can all sing it, and then Elder Haven can hear us.”
Dannie liked to sing, and he sang the little verse over and over again until all the children knew it, and until his mother said that they must all run home and make themselves tidy, and then come back, as the dance around the May-pole was to be at two o’clock.
“I do wish that Uncle Enos could see it,” said Anne, as she put on her new white pinafore over her plaid dress, and fastened the coral beads around her neck; “I know well he would like to hear the song.”
“The boats went out early and may get in in good time,” said Aunt Martha.