The workers prepared for the roof by pulling the logs in on two sides and shortening and sloping the ends of the ones on the other two sides until the last log became the ridgepole of the roof. Sometimes pole rafters flattened on top and bottom were used, but this plan called for lumber to plank up the gables. These poles were notched to fit the edge of the top logs of the wall and slanted on the other ends to fit together at the top.
Boards for doors, windows, boxing, and sheeting were a big problem before the coming of the sawmills. A whipsaw operated by two men was sometimes used to divide the timber lengthwise and make crude lumber. Most of the early cabins had puncheon floors. A puncheon is nothing more than a slab of heavy split timber with the face cut smooth with an adz. The round side was flattened to fit the sleepers underneath. Doors were made of hand-sawed lumber and hung with wooden hinges. Wooden shutters were made to slide back and forth in front of the windows. Glass had to be imported and it was seldom seen in the early days. Some cabins were built without windows and the ones that had openings used oiled paper as a substitute for glass.
When the building was ready for the roof, a straight-grained oak or pine tree was selected and cut into twenty-four-, thirty-, or thirty-six-inch lengths and worked into eight-sided blocks for the making of clapboard shingles. The shingles or boards were split from each of the eight sides, working toward the center of the block, with a sharp tool called a rive. These boards were lapped about half and half on the boards or poles of the roof, and fastened with dull-pointed cut nails.
The cracks between the logs in the first houses were chinked with clay, but this process was improved upon in later years by filling the spaces with short pieces of split timber and chinking around them with lime and sand mortar. Many of the houses had the logs fastened together at the corners with large wooden pegs driven through auger holes.
The simplest cabins were built square with a saddle roof, and a lean-to kitchen in the rear. But a more elaborate architecture was used in constructing the better homes. The double house was popular with Ozarkers who could afford it. It was built in two sections with an open hallway or “gallery” between, and covered with a common roof. Pegs were driven into the logs in this hallway and hung with onions, peppers, and other products of garden and farm. It made a convenient shelter for the hound dogs, home from the hunt, and was a storehouse for harness, fish gigs, boat paddles, and odds and ends of every description. Coonskins were stretched on the walls and ’possum and mink hides swung from the rafters during the trapping season.
To complete the log house, one or more fireplaces were needed. The fireplace and chimney as a single unit originated in England nearly five hundred years ago. It was a great improvement over the open fire in the center of the room with the smoke escaping through the rooftree. This Anglo-Saxon idea migrated to America with the earliest settlers and became the popular heating and cooking contrivance wherever wood was plentiful. All the old Ozark homes had chimneys of one type or another. Chimneys of cut stone were built into the better houses, but the poorer people were content with crude rock structure or one of the stick-and-clay variety.
When the hillsman decides to build a mud chimney (natives say “chimley”) neighbors gather in to help him with the work. They dig some good “chimley dirt” of clay and dump it into a pit or barrel along with some straw, or fodder from last year’s cornfield. Water is poured over this and the mixture is stirred and churned until it forms a mortar. This mortar is in turn made into large mud balls with some straw wrapped around the ball, forming what is called a “mud cat.”
The frame for the chimney is shaped like a square-shouldered, long-necked bottle. It is constructed of rough timbers with small pieces running crisscross in “pigpen” fashion. This makes a foundation for the “cats” which are laid on firmly. After the chimney reaches a height beyond a man’s reach it is necessary to “sling the cats” to the men who are working on the scaffold higher up. “Stray cats” fall on the workers until they are covered with mud from head to foot. But showers of mud cannot diminish the enthusiasm of the merry, bantering crowd. Chimney building carries with it an atmosphere of goodwill and merriment, characteristic of all old-time activities.
CHAPTER V
Fun and Frolic
Swing Your Partner
“You can talk ’bout your fox chases and camp meetin’s,” said Tobe Mullins, “but a dancin’ frolic beats ’em all fer a good time. Hit may be a sin t’ say it, but I feel nigher Paradise when callin’ a square dance than at any other time. That thar fiddle music eats right in t’ my bones an’ makes me cut capers I wouldn’t think o’ doin’ nowhar else. Course a leetle dram o’ corn licker helps put a feller in shape fer callin’. Church folks says dancin’ is a turrible sin but I jist can’t think of hit that way.”
I had received an invitation to a play party at the home of Daniel Freeman and was hesitating about going. I knew that the fountain of Freeman hospitality would be full to the brim and overflowing but being a stranger in the hill country, I had made it a practice not to attend country dances.
“This here frolic won’t be a real dance,” explained Tobe, “an’ they won’t be no drinkin’ or tomcattin’ goin’ on ’round th’ place. They’ll play old singin’ games without th’ fiddle music. Church folks don’t object t’ this kind of a frolic. Like as not, th’ preacher’s daughter ’ill be thar.”
Borrowing Tobe’s saddle mule I rode with Tip Logan to the party. When we entered the house, the players were already on the floor and in full swing. They were singing a song that went something like this:
Coffee grows on the white oak tree;
The river flows sweet brandy-o;
Now choose the one to roam with you,
As sweet as sugar in the candy-o.
Two in the center and you’d better get about,
Two in the center and you’d better get about,
Two in the center and you’d better get about,
And swing that lady ’round.
Twenty high-spirited young people were in the living room of Dan Freeman’s double log house, polishing the planks of the floor with their stout shoes and apparently enjoying life fully and freely. Tip and I squeezed in at the door and watched the fun. The players were in an irregular formation, standing around the walls of the room in the semblance of a circle. The first stanza of the coffee song was being sung as we entered the room, and one young man was skipping around inside the circle, apparently looking for a partner. Just as the singers reached the line, “As sweet as sugar in the candy-o,” the boy grabbed a winsome girl by both arms and gave her a violent spin around the circle. He did just as the singers told him to do—“And swing that lady ’round.”
Then the first stanza of the song was repeated and the girl in the ring chose a boy from the group around her. This young man selected a girl for his partner as he stepped to the inner circle. Without losing a step, the two couples traced a figure eight on the floor and were in their proper places in the center of the room when “candy-o” was reached by the wayside troubadours. Then came the order from a dozen throats:
Four in the center and you’d better get about,
Four in the center and you’d better get about,
Four in the center and you’d better get about,
And swing them ladies ’round.
Then the fun really began. Everybody seemed to catch the spirit of the occasion and showed enthusiasm by clapping hands and stomping feet. Acorns peppered the roof above our heads as an overhanging oak joined the celebration. A few gay young swains cut capers on the sidelines as an extra attraction. If the gods frown upon such gaiety surely they were all on a vacation at that moment. The two couples in the center of the room were following the traditional scheme of the old game to the letter. The first couple quickly took positions facing each other some four or five feet apart. The second boy took a position a few feet behind the first young man and the second girl took a relative position behind the first girl. Then boy numbe
r one took his girl’s hand and passed her on the right. They circled so as to meet and pass in about the same spot, followed by the second couple, and tracing a figure eight on the floor. Then came the coffee verse again and the last couple coming in selected another couple to join them. Now three couples were in the center and the crowd sang accordingly:
Six in the center and you’d better get about,
Six in the center and you’d better get about,
Six in the center and you’d better get about,
And swing them ladies ’round.
The figure eight on the floor now became a whirling mass of skirts and stomping feet as the boys in line each took a girl by the hand, right and left alternately, weaving among them and circling back into place.
I had attended numerous play parties while growing up on the Kansas prairies but this game was a new one to me. I saw that it was difficult of execution, but the young folks of the White River country knew it so well they moved through the intricate figures almost automatically. I had almost given up hope of trying to follow the dancers in the serpentine course they were taking, when, to my surprise, Emily Freeman chose me as her partner and half dragged me into the circle. I felt awkward as a bull in a china shop. We were the fourth couple to join the whirling group in the center and before I knew what it was all about, I was being pushed and pulled into the required positions. I tried to double-shuffle Ozark style, but it seemed that my feet were tied. Emily was a good teacher, however, and I soon forgot my embarrassment sufficiently to get about in a fairly acceptable manner.
When the fifth couple had been initiated into the ceremony, we began an elimination process. With each stanza, a couple would drop out, beginning with the boy and girl who first entered the game. The song now went like this:
Ten in the center and two step out,
Ten in the center and two step out,
Ten in the center and two step out,
And swing them ladies ’round.
After a while just one couple was left inside the circle and, as the final stanza of the song closed, this boy and girl took positions with us around the walls of the room. Then came a recess period with the boys filing out of the room to chew tobacco, roll and smoke cigarettes, and attend to other important matters. They took turns with the old gourd dipper at the spring and laughed and joked over trivial matters. The vernacular was pitted with some obscenity and a few racy stories were told, but there was no overflow of vulgarity. Liquor was entirely absent but two or three of the young men spoke of being as dry as a fish out of water. Tobe Mullins had told me there would be no drinking at the Freeman party and his words proved true. Had it been a dance, almost every man would have carried a pint in his bottle-pocket.
The girls, excepting half a dozen who went to the spring, remained seated on the crude benches Dan Freeman had built to accommodate his guests. They waited patiently for the return of their “lords of creation” in order that the frolic might continue.
The next game we played (I was now one of the bunch) was “Down the O-hi-o.” I had been brought up on the Virginia reel and as this game was merely a variant of it, I had no difficulties as in the coffee song mix-up. We took our positions in parallel lines, facing our partners across the room. Tip Logan and Emily Freeman started the ball rolling. There was neither fiddle nor guitar to inspire us but we didn’t really need them. A score of voices sang:
The river is up, the channel is deep,
The waves are steady and strong.
The river is up, the channel is deep,
As we go marching along.
Down the river, oh, down the river,
Oh, down the river we go, oh-o,
Down the river, oh, down the river,
Oh, down the O-hi-o.
At the beginning of the song, Tip advanced to the center to meet the girl from the foot of the opposite line. Emily went through the same procedure with the boy at the foot of our line. Then Tip swung Emily with the waist swing and proceeded to give each girl in the line a right-hand swing, alternately swinging his own partner with the left. Then, hand in hand, they skipped down the room and took positions at the foot of their respective lines. The second couple then started “Down the O-hi-o.” There were eleven couples in all and the one stanza was getting monotonous before half of us had taken our turn. But the Ozarkers knew their “O-hi-o” and added a stanza.
The water is dark and lapping the shore,
The wind blows steady and strong,
The water is deep and lapping the shore
As we go marching along.
Down the river, oh, down the river,
Oh, down the river we go, oh-o,
Down the river, oh, down the river,
Oh, down the O-hi-o.
Many other fine old-time swinging games were played on that October night at the Freeman party. A few that I recall are: “Buffalo Girls,” “Old Brass Wagon,” “Skip t’ My Lou,” “Pig in the Parlor,” “Miller Boy,” “Carrie Nation,” “Going to Boston,” “Four Hands Up to Rowser,” “Shoot the Buffalo,” “Josie,” “Three Little Girls A-Skating They Went,” “Old Dan Tucker,” “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” “Across the Hall,” “Sally Goodin,” and “Weevily Wheat.” Some of these are “cheating games” in which a boy cuts in when the changes are being made. “Pig in the Parlor” is a game of this type.
My father and mother were Irish,
My father and mother were Irish,
My father and mother were Irish,
And I was Irish, too.
It’s right unto your partner,
And left unto your neighbor;
Back unto your partner,
And all promenade.
Another stanza runs like this with the same chorus.
We’ve got a new pig in the parlor,
We’ve got a new pig in the parlor,
We’ve got a new pig in the parlor,
And he is Irish, too.
In this game, the players form a circle with girls on the right. They circle left while the stanza part of the song is sung. Then comes a right and left and “back to your partner” as in the square dance. It is during these changes that the extra boys (the “pigs”) in the center of the circle try to get partners. The boys left without partners at the time of promenading become the new “pigs.”
I enjoyed myself immensely at the Freeman party and could not realize the lateness of the hour when the clock struck twelve, informing us that it was Sunday and time for frolics to cease. As I walked with Tip Logan to where we had tethered our mules, I stepped lightly to the tune of the song we were singing when midnight came to disrupt the party. The spirit of the party’s gaiety had captured me and I was a happy, contented prisoner. As we rode toward Woodville, our mules pushed to a trot by the homing instinct, I visualized a lifetime lease on the hills with a cottage built for two. A stanza from “Weevily Wheat” kept ringing in my mind.
Don’t you think she’s a pretty little miss,
And don’t you think she’s clever,
And don’t you think that she and I
Would make a match forever?
In the years that followed, I learned that the play party with its singing-swinging games is an important social institution in the Ozarks. Like the plain life of the hills, these games are simple in execution but with a catchy rhythm that does not fail in its intended effect. Where the play party originated and what people first chose it as an innocent pastime is not known. Of this much we are sure, it harks back to the seventeenth century in England and probably goes far beyond. Some think these tunes began in the nursery and later found their way into the parlor as pastime for adults, but we have no data to prove this.
Radio artists give these games added color with musical accompaniment. This naturally adds zest to the playing, but it must be remembered that these are singing games and became popular with a certain class of people because of the superstition that “the devil’s in the fiddle” and brings evil influences to the dance. Of course
, the Ozarks have always had an abundance of string music. But in almost every community there are people with religious or moral convictions who oppose the dance. The young people of this group had to have recreation and they substituted the play party. Even the minister’s daughter could dance to the tune of “Skip t’ My Lou” without becoming the subject of gossip. It can be said to the credit of the play party that it is traditionally dry, while the little brown jug is closely associated with the dance. Folk attitudes toward dancing provide an abundance of interesting folklore.1
On with the Dance!
The square dance is faster, gayer, and more complicated than the play-party games. Stringed instruments, such as fiddle, guitar, banjo, and mandolin, set the tempo for this romantic pastime and create an urge to stomp and caper that is almost irresistible. To dance to an old fiddle tune, guided by a skillful caller, is to find happy release and forget the cares of isolation and poverty. Even the good deacon of the “deep-water” church may be pardoned for patting his foot when “The Eighth of January” is played. The square dance helps heal the wounds of privation that pioneer life is heir to. It is an important balance wheel of rural life, an outlet for pent-up streams of emotion.
The church has always been the enemy of this type of dancing, and with good reason. The public dance is usually accompanied by drinking and fighting and probably has its share of responsibility for illicit relations between the sexes. Most hillsmen who attend dances think that liquor is needed to enliven the occasion. The age-old tradition of “the devil in the fiddle” is reinforced by the charges of immorality that have given the public dance a shady reputation. But, good or bad, the institution continues to be a favorite social pastime in and out of the hills. A logrolling or a barn raising without a square dance to follow would be like serving a formal dinner without dessert.
Ozark Country Page 10