Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/35

 we were about to visit our own private ball-room! Do you wonder that our hearts swelled with pride as we entered that hall of many past festivities? It certainly was spacious,—twenty feet wide and thirty long, with a truly beautiful smooth floor. It was rather cheerful, too, lighted by four windows. An immense alder stood so near the eastern windows that its leafless branches trailed across their panes. A rose-bush had climbed half-way up its trunk and was swinging gracefully from its boughs, still fresh and green. From the west we looked straight into the encircling arms of a glorious big fir tree.

Between two of the windows was a slightly elevated platform, upon which stood a nail-keg, which we inferred had been used as a seat for the long-ago musician, as an empty violin case still leaned pathetically against it. Here were also an iron bootjack and a perforated tin lantern, suggestive of tight wet boots and dark nights. The room was simply boarded up, with no ceiling, but merely rafters and shingles overhead. Starting from the musician’s stand, were rough board seats extending around the room, supported by blocks of wood. Shallow boxes were nailed to the walls, each containing a small kerosene lamp. Near one of the windows hung a long narrow mirror, framed in cheap red, now badly scratched and marred. Lying beneath this was a set of quilting-frames, which gave us the idea that a quilting-party sometimes preceded the dance. In one corner