WHAT is it in old fiddle-chunes 'at makes me ketch my breath And ripples up my backbone tel I'm tickled most to death? -- Kind o' like that sweet-sick feelin', in the long sweep of a swing, The first you ever swung in, with yer first sweetheart, i jing! -- Yer first picnic -- yer first ice-cream -- yer first o' @3ever'thing@1 'At happened 'fore yer dancin'-days wuz over! I never understood it -- and I s'pose I never can, -- But right in town here, yisterd'y I heard a pore blind man A-fiddlin' old "Gray Eagle" -- @3And@1-sir! I jes' stopped my load O' hay and listened at him -- yes, and watched the way be "bow'd," -- And back I went, plum forty year', with boys and girls I knowed And loved, long 'fore my dancin'-days wuz over! -- At high noon in yer city, -- with yer blame' Magnetic-Cars A-hummin' and a-screetchin' past -- and bands and G. A. R.'s A-marchin' -- and fire-ingines. -- @3All@1 the noise, the whole street through, Wuz lost on me! -- I only heard a whipperwill er two, It 'peared-like, kind o' callin' 'crost the darkness and the dew, Them nights afore my dancin'-days wuz over. 'T'uz Chused'y-night at Wetherell's, er We'n'sd'y-night at Strawn's, Er Fourth-o-July-night at uther Tomps's house er John's! -- With old Lew Church from Sugar Crick, with that old fiddle he Had sawed clean through the Army, from Atlanty to the sea -- And yit he'd fetched her home ag'in, so's he could play fer me Onc't more afore my dancin'-days wuz over! The woods 'at's all be'n cut away wuz growin' same as then; The youngsters all wuz boys ag'in 'at's now all oldish men; And all the girls 'at @3then@1 wuz girls -- I saw 'em, one and all, As @3plain@1 as then -- the middle-sized, the short-and-fat, and tall -- And 'peared-like, I danced "Tucker" fer 'em up and down the wall Jes' like afore my dancin'-days wuz over! . . . . . . . The facts is, I wuz @3dazed@1 so 'at I clean fergot jes' where I railly wuz, -- a-blockin' streets, and still a-standin' there: I heard the @3po@1-leece yellin', but my ears wuz kind o' @3blurred@1 -- My @3eyes,@1 too, fer the odds o' that, -- bekase I thought I heard My wife 'at's dead a-laughin'-like, and jokin', word-fer-word Jes' like afore her dancin'-days wuz over. |