“Polly Green, her reel,” announced Helen as leader of the dance, and then came the old-fashioned couplet softly hummed:
“Count your threads right,
If you reel in the night
When I am far away.”
Before Nathalie could decide whether the couplet meant only to count your threads at night while Polly was far away, the dancers had swung into place and were going through the minuet. With slow and stately measure they moved, ending each turn with the dipping, sweeping curtsy that has made that dance so graceful a reminder of the festivities of early days.
Now they are singing:
“Twice a year deplumed may they be
In spryngen tyme and harvest tyme,”
as with swift motion each girl pretended to grab up something with her left hand while the right flew up and down with noiseless regularity—plucking a goose for dinner.
The next instant every alternate girl had put her hand over her mouth in the form of a horn and was calling loudly, “Ho, Molly Gray! Hi, Crumple Horn!” This call had barely ceased its musical reverberation when each fair dancer caught up the hem of her apron and, bending forward, with well-simulated deftness was gathering or picking up something from the ground which was quickly thrust into her apron. Another flash of white arms, and each girl had caught up the hem of her neighbor’s gown and with a pretended switch was driving her forward while merrily singing:
“Driving in twilight the waiting cows home,
With arms full-laden with hemlock boughs,
To be traced on a broom ere the coming day
From its eastern chamber should dance away.”
As the songs and motions ended, the girls filed into line and marched around the room as if carrying muskets, that is, women’s muskets, brooms.