the left; half and back; corners turn;
partners sash-i-ate. First four, forwards and back; forward again
and cross over; forward and back and home you go. Gents stand and
ladies swing in the center; own partners and half sash-i-ate.

"Eight hands and gone again; half and back; partners by the right
and opposite by the left--sash-i-ate. Right hands across and howdy
do? Left and back and how are you? Opposite partners, half
sash-i-ate and go to the next (and so on for each couple).

"All hands up and go to the left. Hit the floor. Corners turn and
sash-i-ate. First couple cage the bird with three arms around. Bird
hop out and hoot-owl in; three arms around and hootin' agin. Swing
and circle four, ladies change and gents the same; right and left;
the shoo-fly swing (and so on for each couple)."

In homes where dancing is not permitted, and often in others,
"play-parties" are held, at which social games are practiced with
childlike abandon: Roll the Platter, Weavilly Wheat, Needle's Eye, We
Fish Who Bite, Grin an' Go 'Foot, Swing the Cymblin, Skip t' m' Lou
(pronounced "Skip-tum a-loo") and many others of a rollicking,
half-dancing nature.

Round the house; skip t' m' Lou, my darlin'.
Steal my partner and I'll steal again; skip (etc.).
Take her and go with her--I don't care; skip (etc.).
I can get another as pretty as you; skip (etc.).
Pretty as a red-bird, and prettier too; skip (etc.).

A substitute for the church fair is the "poke-supper," at which dainty
pokes (bags) of cake and other home-made delicacies are auctioned off
to the highest bidder. Whoever bids-in a poke is entitled to eat with
the girl who prepared it, and escort her home. The rivalry excited among
the mountain swains by such artful lures may be judged from the fact
that, in a neighborhood where a man's work brings only a dollar a day, a
pretty girl's poke may be bid up to ten, twenty, or even fifty dollars.

[Illustration: Let the women do the work]

As a rule, the only holidays observed in the mountains, outside the
towns, are Christmas and New Year's. Christmas is celebrated after the
southern fashion, which seems bizarre indeed to one witnessing it for
the first time. The boys and men, having no firecrackers (which they
would disdain, anyway), go about shooting revolvers and drinking to the
limit of capacity or supply. Blank cartridges are never used in this
uproari