he began a round of visits to bid all good-bye.

[Illustration: The Taffy Pulling]

Cousin Mary Craft gave a cotillion party in the country. Cousins Hester
and Martha gave a party in town. Frank Long gave a taffy pulling. The
hot plates of taffy were placed outside the kitchen door on the brick
walk to cool before the taffy was pulled. Archibald Long, Frank's
father, not knowing of the taffy's location, walked out of the house in
his stocking feet, as was his custom ere he retired. In the darkness he
planted one foot, then the other, in a plate of the hot taffy. This
caused him to jump several feet in the air. He started to run. At each
step his feet found another taffy plate. Gobs of the hot stuff sticking
to his feet, pressing up between his toes, the old man introduced a
dance--a high kicking dance that would have won him fame and fortune on
the stage. The hot gobs of taffy clinging to his expansive, woolen
sock-encased feet caused him such intense pain, the old man endeavored
to introduce a new stunt, namely, to throw both feet in the air at the
same time.

All the boys and girls ran from the dining room at the first sound of
the yells of the old man. The lamps within enlightened the weird scene
without.

When both feet were flung in the air simultaneously the old man sat down
suddenly. He sat on the largest plate, with the hottest gob of taffy in
the collection. His seat had barely touched the plate, the taffy had
scarcely squashed through his jeans pants, until he made an effort to
rise again. Failing in this he flopped on his stomach, clutching and
tearing at his seat of latest misery, taffy stringing from his fingers.

Rearing his rear end high in the taffy laden air he planted his head in
another plate of taffy which, was still tenderly clinging to the few
straggling hairs on the old man's pate, as they carried him into the
house, the taffy plate on his head like the crown of the old king.
Gradually dangling, it descended to the floor, only to be trampled in
the dust by the rabble.

The old man was put to bed. Poultices of apple butter, sweet-oil and a
whitish-bluish clay dug from the bottom of the spring were applied to
his blistered parts.

The taffy pulling party, the scene of gayety so suddenly transformed to
one of suffering, lives in the memory of Alfred by the recollection of
long threads of amber colored taffy shimmering in the soft moonlight as
they clung to the plum tree branches where the ol