"Thar's milk and honey in that land as we're goin' to, and the lost tribes of Israel is thar, and will jine us. They say as we'll starve on the road, bekase thar's no game and no water; but thar's manna up in heaven, and it'll rain on us, and thar's prophets among us can make the water s come.' Can't they, brother Dowdle?"
"Well, they can."
"And now, what have the Gentiles and the Philistines to say against us Mormons? They says we're thieves, and steal hogs; yes, d——— 'em! they say we has as many wives as we like. So we have. I've twenty—forty, myself, and mean to have as many more as I can get. But it's to pass unfortunate females into heaven that I has'em—yes, to prevent'em going to roaring flames and damnation that I does it.
"Brother Dowdle," he continued, in a hoarse, low voice, "I've 'give out,' and think we'd better begin the exercises grettful to the Lord."
Brother Dowdle rose, and, after saying that he didn't "feel like saying much," begged to remind all hands that dancing was "solemn like, to be done with proper devotion, and not with laughing and talking, of which he hoped to hear little or none; that joy was to be in their hearts, and not on their lips; that they danced for the glory of the Lord, and not their own amusement, as did the Gentiles." After saying thus, he called upon brother Ezra to "strike up": sundry couples stood forth, and the ball commenced.
Ezra of the violin was a tall shambling Missourian, with a pair of homespun pantaloons thrust into the legs of his heavy boots. Nodding his head in time with the music, he occasionally gave instructions to such of the dancers as were at fault, singing them to the tune he was playing, in a dismal nasal tone,—
"Down the center—hands across,
You Jake Herring—thump it,
Now, you all go right ahead—
Every one of you hump it.