Then Hunicut’s girl, Marindy, read a letter ’bout winter, and what fun the youngsters allus had in winter-time, a-sleighin’ and the like, and spellin’-matches, and huskin’-bees, and all.  Purty good, it was, and made a feller think o’ old times.  Well, that was about the best thing ther’ was done that night; but ever’body said the teacher wrote it far her; and I wouldn’t be su’prised much, far they was married not long afterwards.  I expect he wrote it far her.—­Wouldn’t put it past Wes!

They had a dialogue, too, ’at was purty good.  Little Bob Arnold was all fixed up—­had on his pap’s old bell-crowned hat, the one he was married in.  Well, I jist thought die I would when I seed that old hat and called to mind the night his pap was married, and we all got him a little how-come-you-so on some left-handed cider ‘at had be’n a-layin’ in a whisky-bar’l tel it was strong enough to bear up a’ egg.  I kin ricollect now jist how he looked in that hat, when it was all new, you know, and a-settin on the back of his head, and his hair in his eyes; and sich hair!—­as red as git-out—­and his little black eyes a-shinin’ like beads.  Well sir, you’d a-died to a-seed him a-dancin’.  We danced all night that night, and would a-be’n a-dancin’ yit, I reckon, ef the fiddler hadn’t a-give out.  Wash Lowry was a-fiddlin’ far us; and along to’rds three or four in the mornin’ Wash was purty well fagged out.  You see, Wash could never play far a dance er nothin’ ’thout a-drinkin’ more er less, and when he got to a certain pitch you couldn’t git nothin’ out o’ him but “Barbary Allan;” so at last he struck up on that, and jist kep’ it up and kep’ it up, and nobody couldn’t git nothin’ else out of him!

Now, anybody ’at ever danced knows ’at “Barbary Allan” hain’t no tune to dance by, no way you can fix it; and, o’ course, the boys seed at onc’t the’r fun was gone ef they could n’t git him on another tune.—­And they ’d coax and beg and plead with him, and maybe git him started on “The Wind Blows over the Barley,” and ’bout the time they’d git to knockin’ it down agin purty lively, he’d go to sawin’ away on “Barbary Allan”—­and I’ll-be-switched-to-death ef that feller didn’t set there and play hisse’f sound asleep on “Barbary Allan,” and we had to wake him up afore he’d quit!  Now, that’s jes’ a plum’ facts.  And ther’ wasn’t a better fiddler nowheres than Wash Lowry, when he was at hisse’f.  I’ve heerd a good many fiddlers in my day, and I never heerd one yit ‘at could play my style o’ fiddlin’ ekal to Wash Lowry.  You see, Wash didn’t play none o’ this-here newfangled music—­nothin’ but the old tunes, you understand, “The Forkéd Deer,” and “Old Fat Gal,” and “Gray Eagle,” and the like.  Now, them’s music!  Used to like to hear Wash play “Gray Eagle.”  He could come as nigh a-makin’ that old tune talk as ever you heerd!  Used to think a heap o’ his fiddle—­and he had a good one, shore.  I’ve heard him say, time and time agin, ’at a five-dollar gold-piece wouldn’t buy it, and