With his hair cut short and his tail cut long,
Where, oh where can he be?"
This was a mighty nice little tune and I had heard it before, but I had never heard it played by such instruments. The people liked the tune and seemed to like the Highlanders too, for when they went by, the people closed in after them in a solid body, and marched behind them, a pushing, elbowing, struggling mass.
When the music stand was reached the band did not go upon it but marched around it playing that same little old tune. I wondered why they didn't change it and play something else but as the crowd didn't kick there was no use of me kicking. They kept a marching and a marching around the stand for quite a little while but the tune never changed. The musicians took a good fresh hold on the air every minute or two, some note rising a little shriller than the others but that is all the variation there was. Do you want to know the honest truth? Well I wasn't stuck on the tune or the bagpipes either. The noise they made would have made a dog howl. It was nothing but a shrieking, yelling, and squeaking. Call that music? From the pleased faces of the people you would have judged it was fine.
After what seemed a coon's age the band quit playing and marching, and mounted the platform, upon which they had been preceded by a lot of boys and girls who formed the choir.
Number one on the program was a march, the Glendaurel Highlanders. I couldn't see anything in it except more marching to a different tune. The crowd seemed to like it and applauded frantically. There was a whole lot of pushing and shoving by the crowd in my neighborhood and I wasn't comfortable at all. A sturdy dame behind me made herself especially obnoxious by wanting to get right up front and she didn't seem to care how she got there or who she shoved out of the way to accomplish her purpose.
She dug her elbow into my side in no gentle fashion, and was bent on getting in front of me, whether I was agreeable or not. Well, she didn't make the riffle. I planted my elbow in her rib to see how she liked it. She scuttled away from me then quickly enough.
Number two on the program was Marquis of Huntley. I didn't know who the Marquis of Huntley was but evidently the crowd did for they went wild over the tune and dancing. The dancing was fine, tip-top, but I can't say as much for the tune. The way them Highlanders could dance was a caution, for they were graceful and supple as eels. No flies on them.
Number three was a corker, a reel called "The Auld Wife Ayont the Fire." There was something doing this time. The Highlanders turned themselves loose and they hopped, skipped, jumped and yelled like a tribe of Sioux Indians on the war path. How they did carry on and how the crowd whooped it up in sympathy! The whole push was frantic, Highlanders and all. My hair riz but I don't know why. If any one tells me that those bare-legged Highlanders can't dance I will surely tell them they are mistaken. They were artists and no mistake, every one of them.
Brian Boru was the next event on the program, a march. I was getting tired of marches but the mob wasn't. They applauded the Brian Boru wildly and saw a whole lot in it that I couldn't see.