109 The Dance, A Personal Adventure of the Author
Augustus Longstreet
SOME years ago I was called by business to one of the frontier counties, then but recently settled. It became necessary for me, while there, to enlist the services of Thomas Gibson, Esq., one of the magistrates of the county, who resided about a mile and a half from my lodgings; and to this circumstance was I indebted for my introduction to him. I had made the intended disposition of my business, and was on the eve of my departure for the city of my residence, when I was induced to remain a day longer by an invitation from the squire to attend a dance at his house on the following day. Having learned from my landlord that I would probably “be expected at the frolic ” about the hour of ten in the forenoon, and, being desirous of seeing all that passed upon the occasion, I went over about an hour before the time.
The squire’s dwelling consisted of but one room, which answered the threefold purpose of dining-room, bedroom, and kitchen. The house was constructed of logs, and the floor was of puncheons a term which, in Georgia, means split logs, with their faces a little smoothed with the axe or hatchet. To gratify his daughters, Polly and Silvy, the old gentleman and his lady had consented to camp out for a day, and to surrender the habitation to the girls and their young friends.
When I reached there I found all things in readiness for the promised amusement. The girls, as the old gentleman informed me, had compelled the family to breakfast under the trees, for they had completely stripped the house of its furniture before the sun rose. They were already attired for the dance, in neat but plain habiliments of their own manufacture. “What !” says some weakly, sickly, delicate, useless, affected, “charming creature” of the city “dressed for a ball at nine in the morning !” ” Even so, my delectable Miss Octavia Matilda Juliana Claudia Ipecacuanha; and what have you to say against it ? If people must dance, is it riot much more rational to employ the hour allotted to exercise in that amusement than the hours sacred to repose and meditation? And which is entitled to the most credit the young lady who rises with the dawn, and puts herself and whole house in order for a ball four hours before it begins, or the one who requires a fortnight to get herself dressed for it?
The squire and I employed the interval in conversation about the first settlement of the country, in the course of which I picked up some useful and much interesting information. We were at length interrupted, however, by the sound of a violin, which proceeded from a thick wood at my left. The performer soon after made his appearance, and proved to be no other than Billy Porter, a negro fellow of much harmless wit and humor, who was well known throughout the State. Poor Billy! “his harp is now hung upon the willow”; and I would not blush to offer a tear to his memory, for his name is associated with some of the happiest sc