hammers, and his melancholy calls ringing high above the din of
shuffling feet. His grandfather was standing before the fireplace,
his grizzled hair tousled and his face red with something more
than the spirits of the dance. The colonel was doing the "grand
right and left," and his mother was the colonel's partner--the
colonel as gallant as though he were leading mazes with a queen
and his mother simpering and blushing like a girl. In one corner
sat Steve Hawn, scowling like a storm-cloud, and on one bed sat
Marjorie and the boy Gray watching the couple and apparently
shrieking with laughter; and Jason wondered what they could be
laughing about. Little Mavis was not in sight. When the dance
closed he could see the colonel go over to the little strangers
and, seizing each by the hand, try to pull them from the bed into
the middle of the floor. Finally they came, and the boy, looking
through the window, and Mavis, who suddenly appeared in the door
leading to the porch, saw a strange sight. Gray took Marjorie's
right hand with his left and put his right arm around her waist
and then to the stirring strains of "Soapsuds Over the Fence" they
whirled about the room as lightly as two feathers in an eddy of
air. It was a two-step and the first round dance ever seen in
these hills, and the mountaineers took it silently, grimly, and
with little sign of favor or disapproval, except from old Jason,
who, looking around for Mavis, caught sight of little Jason's
wondering face over her shoulder, for the boy had left the blurred
window-pane and hurried around to the back door for a better view.
With a whoop the old man reached for the little girl, and gathered
in the boy with his other hand.

"Hyeh!" he cried, "you two just git out thar an' shake a foot!"