Harry and Jack found two pretty country girls of about their own age willing to dance, and joined the two lines that were forming at the head of the sitting-room. Soon nearly everybody in the house was in line, old Job Brodhead and his wife leading off.
Once again the fiddler and the harp player tuned up and started the reel, and away the dancers went, one couple after the other, forward and back, forward and around, forward and join hands, and all the rest of it. Some mistakes were made, and it grew mighty warm toward the end. But nobody minded this, and all laughed and cracked jokes, and when, nearly an hour later, the reel was ended, every one was on the best possible terms with every one else.
“I’ll slip down to the barn and see how Pickles is making out,” whispered Harry, and off he went, leaving Jack to entertain the girls they had danced with.
Harry found the colored youth in his glory. Pickles had brought his banjo along, and was entertaining the other colored people and the farm hands with plantation songs and tunes. It was not long before word was sent from the farmhouse to come up and entertain the others. And Pickles had to go.
In the meantime cider was flowing, and apples and nuts were passed around on all sides. About eleven o’clock the kitchen was cleared, and the older women went to work to set the tables for supper.
After the reel came other dances in the sitting-room and hall—waltzes, quadrilles and the like, and Harry and Jack and two of the young ladies who had been to dancing school danced the latest two-step, while the older folks looked on.
At last supper was announced, and such a feast as that was! There was enough three times over, and everything of the best. All of the boys were urged to eat, until Boxy whispered to Andy that every button was ready to burst off. It was a country supper never to be forgotten! They finished off with mince pie, and nuts, and raisins, and it was after one o’clock when the feast was declared at an end.
Then came several toasts. First old Job Brodhead made a little speech, and then his son-in-law, and after this half-a-dozen neighbors.
“Maybe our young friends from Rudskill kin speak pieces,” said Mother Brodhead, and then half a dozen clustered around Harry and Jack and the others, demanding something from them.
Luckily, Andy and Boxy knew a funny dialogue which they got off amid much laughter. Then Jack recited “The Sword of Bunker Hill.”