This is a very interesting figure, and one that is difficult to understand and dance, as everyone seems to be working hard, jumping high, winding, and twisting here and there, but all are enjoying the fun and having a great time, the old-fashioned way.
The square dance has always been the most popular amusement for social gatherings among the hill folks, and is frequently held in private homes far back in the hills, where pie suppers or box suppers are held in connection with the dance. The lady of the house wherever the dance may be, will have a number of pies baked--if it happens to be a pie supper--or if a box supper, the girls from the neighborhood will cook up chicken, pumpkin pies, cookies, etc., fill their boxes, with their names written on cards, and placed within, and take them along, and after they have danced until around midnight, and all are hot and hungry, then the pies, or boxes, are put up and sold at auction to the highest bidder, after which the boys and girls go away in couples and have supper; then the dance starts again and goes on until daybreak.
The fiddler usually gets free lunch and free drinks, but the first thing of all is to give the "fiddler a dram," and this is done by the good-natured old boy, who, dressed in overalls an' coarse shoes, comes riding his pony and saddle up from way down in the holler with a quart on his hip, leaps from his saddle, ties his pony to a tree, goes in and takes the fiddler out in the dark, and gives him a "snort" of that good old "mountain dew," that enables him to go in, take his seat, cross his legs, and rasp out one after another of the old hill tunes that put the quibble and jitter in the boys and girls, and keep it up untiringly until sunrise the next morning.
from The Pioneers Of The Ozarks
by L. L. Broadfoot |
