Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/199

 As there was no hope of sleep, I fell a-thinking of the palmy days of this ball-room, when, as we are told, the devotees of the dance came from twenty miles around to tread a gay measure here. I thought of the nail-keg we found upon the dais, which had probably been used as a seat by one of the musicians, as an empty violin case was leaning against it.

It seemed a most fitting time for ghosts to walk. What if that long-ago violinist should come back to night, and, perching himself on the chair that had ousted his keg, suddenly begin “to plonk and plunk and plink, and to rosin up his bow,” and should start up all the phantom belles and beaux of the shadowy past, and I should hear slippered and pumped feet sliding up and down the long room,—should catch the scent of bergamot and patchouli and other old-time flavors?

Just here I heard above the roar of the tempest: “Honors to your partners! Join hands and circle to the left! Balance all! Swing on the corners!”

“Goodness, Tom! are you crazy?”

“No, ma’am; it’s just water on the brain, I think. But didn’t you hear him,—that old fiddler at the head of your bed, jerking off ‘Old Dan Tucker,’ and all the fellows skating across the room to secure their partners? Just to be friendly, I thought I’d call off for the spooks.”

After a time the deluge ceased, and then the ball-room became an ideal place for sleep. It was delightful to lie