A mountaineer, who is to take this queer record to the post-office, is waiting for me below, and I must close,—hoping that the country pictures I have endeavored to sketch, may have a tendency to make you feel a portion of that joy which has characterized this delightful Spring Day.
CHAPTER III.
The Corn Planting Bee.
Plauterkill Clove, May.
The people who inhabit that section of country lying between the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson River, are undoubtedly the legitimate descendants of the far-famed Rip Van Winkle. Dutch blood floweth in their veins, and their names, appearance, manners, are all Dutch, and Dutch only. The majority of them are engaged in tilling the soil, and as they seem to be satisfied with a bare competency, the peacefulness of their lives is only equalled by their ignorance of books and the world at large. The height of their ambition is to enjoy a frolic, and what civilized people understand by that term, they designate a Bee. Not only have they their wedding and funeral bees, but they commemorate their agricultural labors with a bee, and of these the corn planting bee, which I am about to describe, is a specimen.
A certain old Dutchman of my acquaintance had so long neglected the field where he intended to plant his corn, that he found it necessary to retrieve his reputation by getting up a bee. He therefore immediately issued his invitations, and at two o’clock on the appointed day, about seventy of his neighbors, including men and women, made their appearance at his dwelling, each one of them furnished with a hoe and a small bag to carry the seed. After supplying his guests with all they wanted in the way of spiritual drink, my friend gave the signal, and shouldering a large hoe, started off for the field of action, closely followed by his neighbors, who fell to work quite lustily. The field was large, but as the laborers were numerous, it was entirely planted at least two hours before sunset, when the party was disbanded, with the express understanding resting upon their minds that they should invite their children to the dance, which was to take place in the evening at the bee-giver’s residence.
The house of my farmer friend having been originally built for a tavern, it happened to contain a large ball-room, and on this occasion it was stripped of its beds and bedding, and the walls thereof decked from top to bottom with green branches and an occasional tallow candle, and conspicuous at one end of the hall was a refreshment establishment, well supplied with pies, gingerbread, molasses candy and sugars, and with an abundance of colored alcohols. The number of young men and women who came together on this occasion was about one hundred, and while they were trimming for the approaching dance, the musician, a long-legged, huge and bony Dutchman, was tuning a rusty fiddle. The thirty minutes occupied by him in this interesting business were employed by the male portion of the guests in “wetting their whistles.” The dresses worn on this occasion were eminently rustic and unique. Those of the gentlemen, for the most part, were made of coarse gray cloth, similar to that worn by the residents on Blackwell’s Island, while the ladies were arrayed in white cotton dresses, trimmed with scarlet ribbon. Pumps being out of vogue, cowhide boots were worn by the former and calf brogans by the latter.
All things being now ready, a terribly loud screech came from the poor little fiddle, and the clattering of heels commenced, shaking the building to its very foundation. “On with the dance, let joy be unconfined,” seemed to be the motto of all present, and from the start, there seemed to be a strife between the male and female dancers as to who should leap the highest and make the most noise. Desperate were the efforts of the musician, as he toiled away upon his instrument, keeping discord with his heels; and every unusual wail of the fiddle was the forerunner of a shower of sweat, which came rolling off the fiddler’s face to the floor. And then the joyous delirium of the musician was communicated to the dancers, and as the dance proceeded, their efforts became still more desperate; the women wildly threw back their hair, and many of the men took off their coats, and rolled up their shirt sleeves, for the purpose of keeping cool. In spite of every effort, however, the faces of the dancers became quite red with the rare excitement, and the hall was filled with a kind of heated fog, in which the first “breakdown” of the evening concluded.
Then followed the refreshment scene. The men drank whisky and smoked cigars, while the women feasted on mince pies, drank small beer, and sucked molasses candy. Some of the smaller men or boys, who were too lazy to dance, sneaked off into an out-of-the-way room, for the purpose of pitching pennies, while a few couples, who were victims to the tender passion, retired to some cozy nook to bask unobserved in each other’s smiles.