"Ah! I am glad to hear it!" laughed the minister, turning round. "Are you the happy man?"
"Wal, I reckon so, and I cac'late as how, Sal Clayton there is the happy gal."
All eyes were turned toward the speaker, and he stood their smiles unflinchingly. His face was of a fiery red, and a large, flowing necktie hung disregarded over his breast.
"Go in, Josiah; that's you!" exclaimed several patting him on the shoulder.
"Get out all of you, till I'm through. Come up here, Sal; no use scroochin' now."
The females bore the blushing one forward, until she was near enough for Josiah to get hold of her hand.
"Now go ahead, squire—you—minister, I mean, and don't be too thundering long about it, for I want to get married most terribly."
The company gave way, and the two stepped forward, and in a few moments were pronounced man and wife. When Josiah saluted his bride, the smack was a telling one, and the congratulations of Morton and Graham were nothing to those which were showered upon the happy man.
Now the sport commenced. An old ranger suddenly made his appearance, bearing a violin under his arm—a "a reg'lar old cremony," as he termed it. The word was given to "make ready for the dance!" The old folks disappeared and entered the house, where, with the minister, they indulged in conversation, story-telling, nuts, apples, and cider.
The fiddler coiled himself upon the top of a box, and commenced twisting the screws of his instrument, and thumbing the strings. The operation of "tuning" was evidently a painful one, for it was noticed that at each turn of the screw, he shut one eye and twisted his mouth.
The violin was at length tuned, the bow was given two or three sweeps across a lump of rosin, and then drawn across the strings, as if it said "attention!" As the couples were forming, the violinist slid partly down off the box, so that one foot could beat upon the sanded floor, and then, giving his head a jerk backward, struck up a reel that fairly set every heart dancing. The floor was immediately filled with the young folks. Tall, strapping fellows plunged around the
