Part 12 (1/2)
Sleep pretty wantons, do not cry, And I will sing a lullabye.”
Another moment, and the arms had fallen, each girl faced her opposite partner, and then linking hands together they were rocking a cradle as they joyously warbled:
”Baby is a sailor boy, swing, cradle, swing; Sailing is the sailor's joy, swing, cradle, swing.”
Now the girls were waltzing gaily down the room and back again to place, where this time they formed in rows of three in each line. A crash of chords from the piano, and each girl stepped forward with outstretched left hand, and made the motion of taking something with the right hand from the closed left, and casting it on the ground, as they repeated clearly and loudly:
”Good flax and good hemp to have of her own, In May, a good housewife will see that it is sown.
And afterwards trim it to serve in a need, The fimble to spin, the card from her reel.”
Yes, they were sowing hemp as their great-grand-mothers had done hundreds of years ago-a sign of a thrifty housewife. Now came three claps of the hand and again the girls swung into two facing lines. Each performer now lightly put forward the right foot, poised on the ball of the left one, while making the motion as of moving the treadle of a spinning-wheel, as with lifted hands she twisted the flax, stopping every moment to moisten one finger in an imaginary cup fastened to the distaff.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Polly Green, her reel,” announced Helen.]
”Polly Green, her reel,” announced Helen as leader of the dance, and then came the old-fas.h.i.+oned 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 ap.r.o.n and, bending forward, with well-simulated deftness was gathering or picking up something from the ground which was quickly thrust into her ap.r.o.n. 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.
Once more in row, each girl pretended she was holding a card with one hand, while drawing another card softly, but swiftly across the first.
This was done with a deft, catchy motion as the girls sing-songed:
”Niddy-noddy, niddy-noddy Two heads on one body.”
”Now we are imitating the motions of carding wool,” Helen whispered softly to Nathalie. ”Niddy-noddy means the old-fas.h.i.+oned hand-reel used in the days when there were no machines.”
The Pioneers had finished carding wool and were dancing the Virginia Reel, spinning each other around with the vigor and vim of young hearts as a prelude to the next dance. In this they simulated sewing, taking their st.i.tches with a precision and handiness that rivalled the little maids of Puritan days. With a posture as of holding a wooden frame, while in and out the needle flew, each damsel repeated slowly, with quaint precision:
”Lola Standish is my name.
Lord, guide my heart that I may do thy will, And fill my Hands with such convenient skill As will conduce to Virtue void of shame, And I will give the Glory to thy name.”
Only a s.p.a.ce of time and the samplers were dropped, and each girl grew strangely still, with bent head and listening ears. With eyes flaming in a fixed stare she poised an imaginary fowling-piece on her shoulder.
They stood for a moment in this pose as each one present grasped the idea that they were doing the deed that many a Pioneer woman had bravely done in those early days, in the absence of husband keeping guard over the home from the relentless ravages of the red man!
CHAPTER VIII-THE MOTTO, ”I CAN”