Vandemark's Folly Part 29

This proves how straight they were about violating their temperance vows, and how pious. Though there are some lines of poetry in the _Fifth Reader_ which seem to show that the governor missed a real sacrament.

They read:

"Who gives himself with his alms feeds three-- Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me;"

but Governor Wade was a practical man who made his religion fit what he wanted to do, and what he felt was the proper thing. Bob and Jack were worldly, like the rest of us. The governor got the reputation of being a hard man, and the wine incident did a good deal to add to it. The point is that there had to be some other way of entertaining the company at the party, besides drinking, card-playing, or dancing. Of course the older people could discuss the price of land, the county organization and the like; but even the important things of the country were mostly in the hands of young people--and young folks will be young folks.

4

Kittie Fleming was a pretty black-eyed girl, who afterward made the trouble between Bob Wade and his father. At this party the thing which made it a sad affair to me was the attentions paid to Virginia by Bob. I might have been comforted by the nice way Kittie Fleming treated me, if I had had eyes for any one but Virginia; but when Kittie smiled on me, I always thought how much sweeter was Virginia's smile. But _her_ smiles that evening were all for Bob Wade. In fact, he gave n.o.body else a chance. It really seemed as if the governor and his wife were pleased to see him deserting Kittie Fleming, but whether or not this was because they thought the poor orphan Virginia a better match, or for the reason that any new flame would wean him from Kittie I could not say. And I suppose they thought Kittie's encouraging behavior to me was not only a proof of her low tastes, or rather her lack of ambition, but a sure sign to Bob that she was not in his cla.s.s. So far as I was concerned I was wretched, especially when the younger people began turning the gathering into a "play party."

Now there was a difference between a play party and a kissing party or kissing bee, as we used to call it. The play party was quite respectable, and could be indulged in by church-members. In it the people taking part sang airs each with its own words, and moved about in step to the music. The absence of the fiddle and the "calling off" and the name of dancing took the curse off. They went through figures a lot like dances; swung partners by one hand or both; advanced and retreated, "balanced to partners" bowing and saluting; clasping hands, right and left alternately with those they met; and balanced to places, and the like. Sometimes they had a couple to lead them, as in the dance called the German, of which my granddaughter tells me; but usually they were all supposed to know the way the play went, and the words were always such as to help. Here is the one they started off with that night:

"We come here to bounce around, We come here to bounce around, We come here to bounce around, Tra, la, la!

Ladies, do si do, Gents, you know, Swing to the right, And then to the left, And all promenade!"

Oh, yes! I have seen Wades and Flemings and Holbrooks and all the rest singing and hopping about to the tune of _We Come Here to Bounce Around_; and also _We'll All Go Down to Rowser_; and _Hey, Jim Along, Jim Along Josie_; and _Angelina Do Go Home_; and _Good-by Susan Jane_; and _Shoot the Buffalo_; and _Weevilly Wheat_; and _Sandy He Belonged to the Mill_; and _I've Been to the East, I've Been to the West, I've Been to the Jay-Bird's Altar_; and _Skip-to-My-Lou_; and _The Juniper Tree_; and _Go In and Out the Window_; and _The Jolly Old Miller_; and _Captain Jinks_; and lots more of them. Boyds and Burnses and Smythes tripping the light fantastic with them, and not half a dozen dresses better than alpacas in the crowd, and the men many of them in drilling trousers--and half of them with hayseed in their hair from the load on which they rode to the party! So, ye Iowa aristocracy, put that in your pipes and smoke it, as ye bowl over the country in your automobiles--or your airs.h.i.+ps, as I suppose it may be before you read this!

I went round with the rest of them, for I had seen all these plays on the ca.n.a.l boats, and had once or twice taken part in them. Kittie Fleming, very graceful and gracious as she bowed to me, and as I swung her around, was my partner. Bob Wade still devoted himself to Virginia, who was like a fairy in her fine pink silk dress.

"This is enough of these plays," shouted Bob at last, after looking about to see that his father and mother were not in the room. "Let's have the 'Needle's Eye'!"

"The 'Needle's Eye'!" was the cry, then.

"I won't play kissing games!" said one or two of the girls.

"Le's have 'The Gay Balonza Man'!" shouted Doctor Bliven, who was in the midst of the gaieties, while his wife too, plunged in as if to outdo him.

"Oh, yes!" she said, smiling up into the face of Frank Finster, with whom she had been playing. "Let's have 'The Gay Balonza Man!' It's such fun[13]!"

[13] One here discovers a curious link between our recent past and olden times in our Old Home, England. This game has like most of the kissing or play-party games of our fathers (and mothers) more than one version.

By some it was called "The Gay Galoney Man," by others "The Gay Balonza Man." It is a last vestige of the customs of the sixteenth century and earlier in England. It was brought over by our ancestors, and survived in Iowa at the time of its settlement, and probably persists still in remote localities settled by British immigrants. The "Gay Balonza Man"

must be the character--the traveling beggar, pedler or tinker,--who was the hero of country-side people, and of the poem attributed to James V.

called _The Gaberlunzie-Man_ (1512-1542) in which the event is summed up in two lines relating to a peasant girl, "She's aff wi the gaberlunzie-man." The words of the play run in part as follows:

"See the gay balonza-man, the charming gay balonza-man; We'll do all that ever we can, To cheat the gay balonza-man!"

The things he was to be cheated of seemed to be osculations.--G.v.d.M.

"The Needle's Eye" won, and we formed in a long line of couples--Wades, Finsters, Flemings, Boyds and the rest of the roll of present-day aristocrats, and marched, singing, between a boy and a girl standing on chairs with their hands joined. Here is the song--I can sing the tune to-day:

"The needle's eye, Which doth supply The thread which runs so true; {And many a la.s.s {Have I let pa.s.s or {And many a beau {Have I let go Because I wanted you!"

At the word "you," the two on the chairs--they were Lizzie Finster and Charley McKim at first--brought their arms down and caught a couple--they caught Kittie and me--who were at that moment pa.s.sing through between the chairs--which were the needle's eye; and then they sang, giving us room to execute:

"And they bow so neat!

And they kiss so sweet!

We do intend before we end, to have this couple meet!"

Crimson of face, awkward as a calf, I bowed to Kittie and she to me; and then she threw her arms about me and kissed me on the lips. And then I saw her wink slyly at Bob Wade. Then Kittie and I became the needle's eye and she worked it so we caught Bob Wade and Virginia, even though it was necessary to wait a moment after the word "you"--she meant to do it!

As Bob's lips met Virginia's I groaned, and turning my back on Kittie Fleming, I rushed out of the room. Judge Stone tried to stop me.

5

"Jake, Jake!" Judge Stone whispered in my ear, looking anxiously around, "have you seen the governor in the last half or three-quarters of an hour?"

"He hain't been in here," I said, jerking away from him.

"Sure?" he persisted. "I've looked everywhere except in his office where he put the money--and that's locked."

I broke away from him and went out. I had no desire to see Governor Wade or any one else. I wanted to be alone. I had seen Virginia kissed by Bob Wade--and they were still singing that sickish play in there.

They would be kissing and kissing all the rest of the night. She to be kissed in this way, and I had been so careful of her, when I was all alone with her for days, and would have given my right hand for a kiss!

It was terrible. I walked back and forth in the yard, and then came up on the porch and sat down on a bench, so as to hear the play-singing.

They were singing _The Gay Balonza-Man_, now. I started up once to walk home, but I thought that Judge Stone was paying me wages for guarding the county's money, and turned to go back where I could watch the games, lured by a sort of fascination to see how many times Virginia would allow herself to be kissed. A woman came out of the house, and in pa.s.sing saw and recognized me. It was Mrs. Bliven. She dropped down on the bench.

"My G.o.d!" she sobbed. "I'll go crazy! I'll kill myself!"

I sat down again on the bench. She had been so happy a few minutes ago, to all appearances, that I was astonished; but after waiting quite a while I could think of nothing to say to her. So I turned my face away for fear that she might see what I felt must show in it.

"You're in trouble, too," she said. "You babies! My G.o.d, how I'd like to change places with you! Did you see him kissing them?"

"Who?" I asked.

"My man," she cried. "Bliven. You know how it is, with us. You're the only one that knows about me--about us--Jake. I've been scared to death for fear you'd tell ever since I found you were coming here to live; and I dasn't tell him--he don't know you know. And now I almost wish you would tell--put it in d.i.c.k McGill's paper. He wants somebody else already. A woman that's done as I have--he can throw me away like an old shoe! But I want you to promise me that if he ever shelves me you'll let the world know. Did you see him hugging them girls? He's getting ready to shelve me, I tell you!"

I sat for some time thinking this matter over. Finally I spoke, and she seemed surprised, as if she had forgotten I was there.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," said I. "I won't tell on you just because you think you want me to. What would happen if everything in the lives of us folks out here was to be told, especially as it would be told in d.i.c.k McGill's paper? But if you ever find out for sure that he is going to--going to--to shelve you, why, come to me, and I'll go to him. I think he would be a skunk to--to shelve you. And I don't see that--that--that he--was any more fairce to hug and kiss than--than some others. Than you!"

"Or you," said she, sort of snickering through her tears.

"I hated it!" I said.

"So did I," said she.

"Maybe Doc did, too," I suggested.

"No," she replied, after a while. "I'll tell you, Jake, I'll hold you to your promise. Sometime I may come to you or send for you. May I?"

"Any time," I answered, and she went in, seeming quite cheered up. I suppose she needed that blow-off, like an engine too full of steam. I wonder if it was wrong to feel for her? But it must be remembered that I had very little religious bringing up.

Well, the party came to an end presently, and Judge Stone came out and holloed for me to bring the team. When I drove up to the door he asked me in a low tone to come and help carry the money out. The governor unlocked his office, and then the safe, and took out the bag, which he handed to Judge Stone.

"Heavy as ever," said the judge. "Catch hold here, Jake, and help me carry it."

"A heavy responsibility at least," said the governor. The governor's hired people of whom he had always a large force had not taken part in the proceedings of the party, but most of them were gathered about as we took our departure. They were to a great extent the younger men among the settlers, and the governor in later times never got tired of saying how much he had done for the early settlers in giving them employment.

N.V. Creede in answering him in campaigns always said that if he gave the boys work, they gave the governor labor in return, and at a dollar a day it seemed to him that the governor was the one who was under obligations to them. It is a curious thing that people who receive money are supposed to be under obligations to those who pay it, no matter what the deal may be. We say "thank you" to the man who pays us for a day's wages; but why, if the work is worth the money?