The sugar was boiling in the kettles, and while it boiled the boys and girls played "snap," and "eleven hand," and "thimble," and "blindfold," and another old play which some of our older people will remember: "Oh! Sister Phoebe, how merry were we, When we sat under the juniper tree— The juniper tree-I-O." And when the sugar had boiled down into candy they emptied it into greased saucers, or as the mountain folks called them, "greased sassers," and set it out to cool; and when it had cooled each boy and girl took a saucer; and they pulled the taffy out and patted it and rolled it till it hung well together; and then they pulled it out a foot long; they pulled it out a yard long; and they doubled it back, and pulled it out; and when it began to look like gold the sweethearts paired off and consolidated their taffy and pulled against each other. They pulled it out and doubled it back, and looped it over, and pulled it out; and In the bright, bright hereafter, when all the joys of all the ages are gathered up and condensed into globules of transcendent ecstacy, I doubt whether there will be anything half so (Sung by Gov. Taylor to air of "Down on the Farm.") In the happy long ago, When I used to draw the bow, At the old log cabin hearthstone all aglow, Oh! the fiddle laughed and sung, And the puncheons fairly rung, With the clatter of the shoe soles long ago. Oh! the merry swings and whirls Of the happy boys and girls, In the good old time cotillion long ago! Oh! they danced the highland fling, And they cut the pigeon wing, To the music of the fiddle and the bow. But the mischief and the mirth, And the frolics 'round the hearth, And the flitting of the shadows to and fro, Like a dream have passed away— Now I'm growing old and gray, And I'll soon hang up the fiddle and the bow. When a few more notes I've made, When a few more tunes I've played, I'll be sleeping where the snowy daises grow. But my griefs will all be o'er When I reach the happy shore, Where I'll greet the friends who loved me long ago. Oh! how sweet, how precious to us all are the memories of the happy long ago! THE OLD VIRGINIA REEL. THE OLD VIRGINIA REEL. |