ch green; the bright wahoo with
its graceful clusters of flame-colored berries overrunning its soberer
neighbors; the hazel, the pawpaw, the dog-wood, the red-bud, the
spice-wood, the sweet-strife, the angelica. On the west the velvet turf
began to unroll gently downward toward the river. The quiet stream ran
with molten silver on that flawless October day, and deep shadows of
royal purple hung curtains of wondrous beauty above the water. Back
under the trees the shadows were darkly blue, bluer even than the
cloudless sky arching so high above the tall tree-tops.

Nature indeed always made more preparations and much finer ones, for the
dance in the woods than the simple people of the wilderness ever thought
of making. The word merely went from one log house to another, fixing
the day for the dance. The hunters' daughters with the help of their
mothers, filled the big baskets with simple good things on the night
before; for the young hunters came very early to go with their
sweethearts to the festival, and there was no time to spare on the
morning of the dance. The dancing sometimes began at nine o'clock in the
morning. The three black men from Cedar House who played for the dancing
were in their places long before that hour, with their instruments
already in tune. One had an old fiddle, another the remnant of a guitar,
and the third a clumsy iron triangle which he had made himself.
Nevertheless they were famous for their dance music and known
throughout the wilderness to all the dancers. Those old-time country
fiddlers--all of them, black or white--how wonderful they were! They
have always been the wonder and the despair of all musicians who have
played by rule and note. The very way that the country fiddler held his
fiddle against his chest and never against his shoulder like the trained
musician! The very way that the country fiddler grasped his bow, firmly
and squarely in the middle, and never lightly at the end like a trained
musician! The very way that he let go and went off and kept on--the
amazing, inimitable spirit, the gayety, the rhythm, the swing! No
trained musician ever heard the music of the country fiddler without
wondering at its power, and longing in vain to know the secret of its
charm. It would be worth a good deal to know where and how they learned
the tunes that they played. Possibly these were handed down by ear from
one to another; some perhaps have never been pent up in notes, and
others may have