Wisconsin dance 1871

This dance account is taken from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book Little House in the Big Woods. Set in rural Wisconsin. Though published in the 20th century, it is a recollection from her childhood around 1871:

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Dance at Grandpa’s

Then Pa took his fiddle out of its box and began to play, and all the couples stood in squares on the floor and began to dance when Pa called the figures.

“Grand right and left!” Pa called out, and all the skirts began to swirl and all the boots began to stamp. The circles went round and round, all the skirts going one way and all the boots going the other way, and hands clasping and parting high up in the air.

“Swing your partners!” Pa called, and “Each gent bow to the lady on the left!”

They all did as Pa said. Laura watched Ma’s skirt swaying and her little waist bending and her dark head bowing, and she thought Ma was the loveliest dancer in the world. The fiddle was singing:

“Oh, you Buffalo gals, Aren’t you coming out tonight, Aren’t you coming out tonight, Aren’t you coming out tonight, Oh, you Buffalo gals, Aren’t you coming out tonight, To dance by the light of the moon?”

The little circles and the big circles went round and round, and the skirts swirled and the boots stamped, and partners bowed and separated and met and bowed again.

In the kitchen Grandma was all by herself, stirring the boiling syrup in the big brass kettle. She stirred in time to the music. By the back door was a pail of clean snow, and sometimes Grandma took a spoonful of syrup from the kettle and poured it on some of the snow in a saucer.

Laura watched the dancers again. Pa was playing “The Irish Washerwoman” now. He called:

“Doe see, ladies, doe see doe, Come down heavy on your heel and toe!” 

Laura could not keep her feet still. Uncle George looked at her and laughed. Then he caught her by the hand and did a little dance with her, in the corner. She liked Uncle George.

Everybody was laughing, over by the kitchen door. They were dragging Grandma in from the kitchen. Grandma’s dress was beautiful, too; a dark blue calico with autumn-colored leaves scattered over it. Her cheeks were pink from laughing, and she was shaking her head. The wooden spoon was in her hand.

“I can’t leave the syrup, “she said.

But Pa began to play “The Arkansas Traveler,” and everybody began to clap in time to the music. So Grandma bowed to them all and did a few steps by herself. She could dance as prettily as any of them. The clapping almost drowned the music of Pa’s fiddle.

Suddenly Uncle George did a pigeon wing, and bowing low before Grandma he began to jig. Grandma tossed her spoon to somebody. She put her hands on her hips and faced Uncle George, and everybody shouted. Grandma was jigging.

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Single fiddler, lots of guests, homemade food, and fancy clothing. The fiddler is calling out the figures:

“Grand right and left!”

“Swing your partners!”

“Each gent bow to the lady on the left!”

“Doe see, ladies, doe see doe, Come down heavy on your heel and toe!”

Iowa dance 1871

– from A Son of the Middle Border, by Hamlin Garland, 1917

Hamlin Garland was an American writer who documented the fiddlers in his extended family. They lived in Wisconsin until he was 8 years old then moved to northern Iowa. Here is an excerpt from his autobiography. He describes a dance scene which happened in 1871:

Old Daddy Fairbanks

Once at a dance in neighbor Button’s house, mother took the “dare” of the fiddler and with shy smile played The Fisher’s Hornpipe or some other simple melody and was mightily cheered at the close of it, a brief performance which she refused to repeat. Afterward she and my’ father danced and this seemed a very wonderful performance, for to us they were “old”—far past such frolicking, although he was but forty and she thirty-one!

At this dance I heard, for the first time, the local professional fiddler, old Daddy Fairbanks, as quaint a character as ever entered fiction, for he was not only butcher and horse doctor but a renowned musician as well. Tall, gaunt and sandy, with enormous nose and sparse projecting teeth, he was to me the most enthralling figure at this dance and his queer “Calls” and his “York State” accent filled us all with delight. “Ally man left,” “Chassay by your pardners,” “Dozy-do” were some of the phrases he used as he played Honest John and Haste to the Wedding. At times he sang his calls in high nasal chant, “Firstlady lead to the right, deedle, deedle dum-dum—gent foller after—dally-deedle-do-do—. three hands round”—and everybody laughed with frank enjoyment of his words and action.

It was a joy to watch him “start the set.” With fiddle under his chin he took his seat in a big chair on the kitchen table in order to command the floor. “Farm on, farm on!” he called disgustedly. “Lively now!” and then, when all the couples were in position, with one mighty No. 14 boot uplifted, with bow laid to strings he snarled, “Already—Gelang!” and with a thundering crash his foot came down, “Honors Tew your pardners— right and left Four!” And the dance was on!

I suspect his fiddlin’ was not even “nuddliny’ but he beat time fairly well and kept the dancers somewhere near to rhythm, and so when his ragged old cap went round he often got a handful of quarters for his toil. He always ate two suppers, one at the beginning of the party and another at the end. He had a high respect for the skill of my Uncle David and was grateful to him and other better musicians for their noninterference with his professional engagements.

© 2013 Mi