The sound of a solitary fiddle had been perceptible at a distance, and sure enough, when I arrived, I found dancing going on amongst the younger folk, in one of the wings of the double house. I had never succeeded in acquiring the dances of my own country, much less the extraordinary movements of those of America; so I amused myself with looking on, and watching the arrivals, who thronged in from all ends and corners of the State. A great number of the young women were light and graceful figures, and looked very interesting on horseback, their cheeks flushed with their quick ride. But they seemed as if they were going on a pilgrimage, instead of coming to a ball,—for each fair dame had a bundle of tolerable size at her saddle-bow; some of them were already known to me, and I assisted them to alight.
Meantime a long table was laid out before the house, and surrounded with chairs, benches, &c.; but as it was impossible for all to find seats at once, the ladies were accommodated first, and waited upon by the gentlemen. The dinner consisted of roast beef, roast pork, potatoes, sweet potatoes, maize bread, cakes, and coffee and milk, and went off very well. Rutkin had brought a case of wine for the ladies, which was soon emptied. After dinner, a speech was made to the assembled public, in honor of the birth-day of the United States, and then dancing commenced again. Picturesque groups were formed here and there, occupied in various ways. In one place, a party of strong-built, sun-burnt figures lounged at full length on the grass, relating their shooting adventures; further on, two figures, astride a fallen tree, were playing a game of cards; in another place, a party leaping with a heavy stone in each hand, to give them more impetus; and a row of big fellows were taking their siesta under the trees, only moving to avoid the too intrusive rays of the sun, as he declined towards the west. Kean and I sauntered about amongst the various groups, and occasionally visited the ball-room—if the interior of a log-house, about sixteen feet by twenty, can be so called. The air within was hot, almost to suffocation, but the sight was at times too pretty, at times too comic to be quickly deserted. Indeed, most of the girls, beating time with their little feet in jigs, reels, and hornpipes, were pretty enough to chain to the spot any worshipper of natural beauty. My attention was soon attracted by an American;—tall, very thin, and rather weak in the knee-joints;—he was buttoned up in a dark-blue dress coat, with light-blue seams, and yellow buttons,—a long roll of tobacco stuck out from one of his pockets which, in the energy of his jumps, he occasionally kicked with his heels; to prevent its being damaged, he therefore transferred it to the breast of his coat: the best of the figure was the cravat, which was so formed, that his head looked like a cup placed in a very large and deep saucer; his chin was never in sight, and as he jumped, mouth, nose, and eyes disappeared behind the black bulwark.
Towards evening I joined in a game of cards. Whiskey bottles passed round, and many of the party were right merry. Having had enough of cards, I returned to the dancing, which had undergone some interruption; but the shrill tones of the violino solo were again heard, as I squeezed through the crowd at the door, into one of the corners right opposite to the musician. This functionary was in a rather capricious humor passing abruptly from the wildest allegro to the most dolorous of the dolefuls, and then breaking off suddenly to ask me for a quid of tobacco. On my answering that I had none, he inflicted a couple of rough strokes on his poor instrument, expressed, in coarse language, a most disagreeable wish respecting the eyes of all the company, on account of the dryness of his throat, which had only had the contents of two bottles of whiskey down it, looked wildly round, began to cry, and fell sobbing on the neck of the thin man in the blue coat, burying his head in the large cravat. He was seized by the arms and legs, and unceremoniously carried out.
Dancing, of course, ceased during this little intermezzo, and one of the party offered to find a sober fiddler; but as the amusement would have been interrupted too long by waiting for him, a tall lad placed himself in front of the chimney, turned up his sleeves with the utmost gravity, bent his knees a little, and began slapping them in time with the palms of his hands; in two minutes all was going on with as much spirit as before.
At length the promised musician arrived, not however in the promised condition; but a connoisseur near me remarked that he would do till twelve o’clock.
To my astonishment, I observed several of the young ladies in white dresses, whom I was almost sure I had seen before in dark dresses; but, as I never paid much attention to such things, I thought I must have been mistaken. An American, however, told me that I was quite right, and that most of them had already changed their dresses three times; and, if I kept a look-out, he continued, I should see that some of them would change again. This, indeed, was the case. Some changed their dresses five times between noon and the following morning. It would be as incorrect to dance for a whole night in the same dress as in Europe to appear without gloves, which latter articles were thought quite unnecessary here.
A farmer, who lived about eight miles lower down the Fourche le Fave, promised me an old canoe to carry K.’s things to Little Rock, and said, that when I got there I might set it adrift, as it was not worth cutting up; so I settled to go home with him next morning to bring the canoe back.
A little after twelve the old American’s prophecy came to pass, and the second fiddler was carried out and laid on the grass, while a third was soon found to take his place. By this time I was tired and sleepy, so I stretched myself under a tree, with my head on an old grindstone, and, in spite of the hard pillow and squeaking fiddle, I slept soundly till morning.
When the sun sent his hot rays over the trees into the clearing, dancing was still going on, and the ground was covered with sleeping figures. Preparations were soon made for departure. The horses, which had been tied to the bushes or fence, or driven into an enclosure, and had been well supplied with maize, were quickly saddled, and troop after troop of men and women disappeared in the thick green forest. I started with the farmer and his wife, the indefatigable fiddlestick working away as long as we were within hearing.
I found the canoe; and the good man was quite right when he said that it was not worth cutting up. None but a person accustomed to such craft would have ventured to step into it. It was nothing more than the roughly hollowed trunk of a tree, about ten feet long by eighteen inches wide; however, it answered my purpose, and, provided with a light paddle, I set out on my return, which, though only eight miles by land, was at least twenty by water.