"I'll bet you six bits," said Morton, "that I can find more corn in your shucks than you kin in mine." But Bill did not accept the wager.
After husking the corn that remained under the rails, the whole party adjourned to the house, washing their hands and faces in the woodshed as they passed into the old hybrid building, half log-cabin, the other half block-house fortification.
The quilting frames were gone; and a substantial supper was set in the apartment which was commonly used for parlor and sitting room, and which was now pressed into service for a dining room. The ladies stood around against the wall with a self-conscious air of modesty, debating, no doubt, the effect of their linsey-woolsey dresses. For what is the use of carding and spinning, winding and weaving, cutting and sewing to get a new linsey dress, if you cannot have it admired?
CHAPTER II.
THE FROLIC.
The supper was soon dispatched; the huskers eating with awkward embarrassment, as frontiermen always do in company,—even in the company of each other. To eat with decency and composure is the final triumph of civilization, and the shuckers of Hissawachee Bottom got through with the disagreeable performance as hurriedly as possible, the more so that their exciting strife had given them vigorous relish for Mrs. Lumsden's "chicken fixin's," and batter-cakes, and "punkin-pies." The quilters had taken their supper an hour before, the table not affording room for both parties. When supper was over the "things" were quickly put away, the table folded up and removed to the kitchen—and the company were then ready to enjoy themselves. There was much gawky timidity on the part of the young men, and not a little shy dropping of the eyes on the part of the young women; but the most courageous presently got some of the rude, country plays a-going. The pawns were sold over the head of the blindfold Mort Goodwin, who, as the wit of the company, devised all manner of penalties for the owners. Susan Tomkins had to stand up in the corner, and say,
"Here I stand all ragged and dirty,
Kiss me quick, or I'll run like a turkey."
These lines were supposed to rhyme. When Aleck Tilley essayed to comply with her request, she tried to run like a turkey, but was stopped in time.
The good taste of people who enjoy society novels will decide at once that these boisterous, unrefined sports are not a promising beginning. It is easy enough to imagine heroism, generosity and courage in people who dance on velvet carpets; but the great heroes, the world's demigods, grew in just such rough social states as that of Ohio in the early part of this century. There is nothing more important for an over-refined generation than to understand that it has not a monopoly of the great qualities of humanity, and that it must not only tolerate rude folk, but sometimes admire in them traits that have grown scarce as refinement has increased. So that I may not shrink from telling that one kissing-play took the place of another until the excitement and merriment reached a pitch which would be thought not consonant with propriety by the society that loves round-dances with roués, and "the German" untranslated—though, for that matter, there are people old-fashioned enough to think that refined deviltry is not much better than rude freedom, after all.
Goodwin entered with the hearty animal spirits of his time of life into the boisterous sport; but there was one drawback to his pleasure—Patty Lumsden would not play. He was glad, indeed, that she did not; he could not bear to see her kissed by his companions. But, then, did Patty like the part he was taking in the rustic revel? He inly rejoiced that his position as the blindfold Justice, meting out punishment to the owner of each forfeit, saved him, to some extent, the necessity of going through the ordeal of kissing. True, it was quite possible that the severest prescription he should make might fall on his own head, if the pawn happened to be his; but he was saved by his good luck and the penetration which enabled him to guess, from the suppressed chuckle of the seller, when the offered pawn was his own.