“I had forgotten that.”
“As it is, they must dance on a carpet, or else it must be taken up, and that is a great bother; whereas, with a nicely waxed floor! And then,” added my grandfather, casually,—running over the words as if of minor importance (’twas a regular masked battery),—“and then the fiddles would sound so much better in such a room.”
“Oho!” cried Charley.
“What?” quickly put in Mr. Whacker, slightly coloring.
“The boys and girls would enjoy it,” replied Charley, demurely.
“Enjoy it? I should think so!” exclaimed Mr. Whacker, relieved to feel that he had not uncovered his artillery.
And so my grandfather set about gathering suitable lumber for his “Library,” as he called it; but it was nearly two years before the structure was complete; so many trees did he find unsuitable, after they were felled, and so carefully did he season the planks, before they were deemed worthy of forming part of this sacred edifice. Nor, during all this time, did Mr. Whacker ever once allude to the “Ball-Room” as likely to prove a suitable place for his quartet performances. At last, in the month of November, 1858, just two years before the arrival of the Don at Elmington, the “Library” was finished, and we three were walking over the glittering waxed floor of Mr. Whacker’s so-called Ball-Room, admiring its proportions and the exquisite perfection of its joinery.
“Well, boys, we’ll christen her at Christmas. We’ll have one of the liveliest dancing-parties ever seen in the county. Suppose, Jack, you go over to the house and bring us a fiddle, and we shall see how she sounds.”
I brought the fiddle.
“Now, Charley, toss us off a reel.”