But now the screeching fiddle is again heard above the murmur of talking and laughing voices, and another rush is made for the sanded floor. Another dance is there enjoyed, differing from the one already described only in its increased extravagance. After sawing away for a long time, as if for dear life, the musician is politely requested to play a new tune. Promptly does he assent to the proposition, but having started on a fresh key, he soon falls into the identical strain, which had kept him busy for the previous hour; so that the philosophic listener is compelled to conclude that the fiddler either cannot play more than one tune, or that he has a particular passion for the monotonous and nameless one to which he so closely clings. And thus, with many indescribable variations does the ball continue throughout the entire night.
I did not venture to trip the “light fantastic toe” on the occasion in question, but my enjoyment as a calm spectator was very amusing and decidedly original. Never before had I seen a greater amount of labour performed by men and women in the same time. I left this interesting assembly about midnight, fully satisfied with what I had seen and heard; but I was afterwards told that I missed more than “half the fun.”
When the music was loudest, so it appears, and the frenzy of the dance at its climax, a select party of Dutch gentlemen were suddenly seized with an appetite for some more substantial food than had yet been given them. They held a consultation on the important subject, and finally agreed to ransack the garret and cellar of their host for the purpose of satisfying their natural desires. In the former place they found a good supply of dried beef, and in the latter, a few loaves of bread and a jar of rich cream, upon which they regaled themselves without favour, but with some fear. The giver of the Bee subsequently discovered what had been done, and though somewhat more than “three sheets in the wind” slyly sent for a pair of constables, who soon made their appearance, and arrested the thieving guests, who were held to bail in the sum of fifty dollars each. I was also informed that the dance was kept up until six o’clock in the morning, and that the appearance of my friend’s establishment, and the condition of his guests at seven o’clock, was ridiculous in the extreme. A small proportion of the Bee-party only had succeeded in starting for home, so that the number who, from excess of drinking and undue fatigue had retired to repose, was not far from three score and ten. The sleeping accommodation of the host was limited, and the consequence was, that his guests had to shift for themselves, as they best could. The floors of every room in the house, including the pantries, were literally covered with men and women; some of them moaning with a severe head-ache, some breathing audibly in a deep sleep, and others snoring in the loudest and most approved style. By twelve o’clock, the interesting company had stolen off to their several homes, and the Corn-Planting Bee, among the Catskills, was at an end.