122 Old Days on the Farm 



squabbles among the census-takers — it was some- 

 times charged that certain hunters kept their 

 trophies in "cold storage" from one shooting 

 match to another. 



EVERYBODY DANCED IN THOSE DAYS 



In those dear old days 'most every one danced. 

 The country boys practised the terpsichorean art 

 on the granary floor in the old log barn by lantern 

 light, when they went out to feed the stock. And 

 the girls — well, they seemed to be born with the 

 dancing devil in their toes. After the sumptuous 

 supper of roast turkey and other fowl had been 

 disposed of by those mighty nimrods and their 

 girls, the big farmhouse dining-room would be 

 denuded of everything portable — even the stove 

 would be taken out to give free passage-way and 

 necessary elbow-room. 



There wasn't any high-class orchestra to flood 

 the dance hall with melody, harmony and concord 

 of sweet sounds in the form of fox trots, two- 

 steps or other modern movements of the lithe and 

 willowy waltzers of to-day. Instead just a fiddler 

 — not a violinist — who would be seated on a chair 

 in the sink or on a table and he'd proceed to rosin 

 the bow and rip off such old favourites as "Old 

 Zip Coon," "The Arkansas Traveller," "Money 

 Musk," "The De'il amang the Tailors" and other 

 popular and classical airs. 



The first number would likely be a Circassian 



