Tom McChesney himself was in most
of them, a hot favorite. By a trick he had learned in the Indian country
he threw Chauncey Dike (no mean adversary) so hard that the backwoods
dandy lay for a moment in sleep. Contrary to the custom of many, Tom was
not in the habit of crowing on such occasions, nor did he even smile as
he helped Chauncey to his feet. But Polly Ann knew, and I knew, that he
was thinking of what Chauncey had said to her.
So the long summer afternoon wore away into twilight, and the sun fell
behind the blue ridges we were to cross. Pine knots were lighted in the
big room, the fiddlers set to again, and then came jigs and three and
four handed reels that made the puncheons rattle,--chicken-flutter and
cut-the-buckle,--and Polly Ann was the leader now, the young men flinging
the girls from fireplace to window in the reels, and back again; and
when, panting and perspiring, the lass was too tired to stand longer, she
dropped into the hospitable lap of the nearest buck who was perched on
the bench along the wall awaiting his chance. For so it went in the
backwoods in those days, and long after, and no harm in it that ever I
could see.
Well, suddenly, as if by concert, the music stopped, and a shout of
laughter rang under the beams as Polly Ann flew out of the door with the
girls after her, as swift of foot as she.
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