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Then the kitchen floor was cleared; table, chairs and lounge were set outside to make room for the dancing, and when the violins rang out with the "Arkansaw Traveller," and big John Kennedy in his official voice of caller-off announced, "Select your partners," every person felt that the real business of the evening had begun.
The three men were Olsen, a Swede, who was a telegraph line repairer, and two men from Dawson, F. Clayson, of Seattle, and L. Relphe, who had been a "caller-off" in a Dawson dance-hall.
On Main Street crowds packed the stores, the sidewalks, and drinking places, and men stood about in groups talking while young girls with their lovers walked up and down. In the hall over Geiger's drug store a dance went on and the voice of the caller-off rose above the clatter of voices and the stamping of horses in the street. Now and then a fight broke out among the roisterers in Piety Hollow.
I am not up to waltzing or any of the newfangled round dances, but give me a Highland schottische, or a square dance, when there is an inventive genius to call off the figures and prescribe plenty of variety. There was no professional caller-off at Interlaken, but Lincoln Todd did duty for one as he danced.
Over each division of the road the superintendent of that division rode as "caller-off" of the stations as they were passed.
Camilla became interested at once, and when he brought Arthur over and introduced him, Camilla's friendly smile set him at his ease. Then Jim generously vacated his seat and went to find Nellie Slater. "Select your partners for a square dance!" big John, the caller-off announced, when the floor was cleared. This was the dance that Mr. and Mrs. Slater would have to dance. It was in vain that Mrs.
Steps of dancing with rattle of iron-shod boot-heels clicking over sanded floors, the hoarse shout of the "caller-off," and now and again angry tones with cracked feminine falsettos broke on the air; and all the time the soft rain fell and the steam seemed to rise from the sewage-laden streets.
She was piloting a bevy of bashful girls to the stairway, and as she passed him she gave him a little nod and smile that set his heart dancing. He heard the caller-off calling for partners for a quadrille. The fiddlers had already tuned their instruments. From where he stood he could see the figures forming, but Jim watched the stairway.