The Daily Phoenix

A Ball and a Prayer Meeting.

Did you ever see a ball followed by a prayer meeting? We have, says an exchange. A few days since, while on a visit to the "White Sulphur Bath," the proprietor informed me that at night he intended to give a ball and supper to the employees of his establishment, including those who had remained faithful to their trusts during the recent "strike," and those who had taken the places and performed the duties of the recreant ones who had been driven away in disgrace. After tea we strolled out to the ball room, which we found brilliantly lighted and filled with an assembly of mixed colors.

The guests of the establishment were seated around the room, interested spectators of the amusing scene, while on the floor the negroes and their invited friends were whirling away to the inspiring strains of the music. Cooks, chamber-maids, nurses, washer-women, and field hands were mingled together, dressed in the very best that their wardrobes could afford. Round jackets, claw hammer and pigeon tail coats, of various styles, on the men, were set off by the muslins, tarletans, calicoes, flounces, furbelows, ribbons, wreaths and waterfalls of the women. Here a stalwart ebony-hued leader of a hoe gang, with a foot like a child's coffin, balanced to a saddle-complexioned nurse, who fanned and flirted with all the airs of a shoddy Saratoga belle; while at the other end of the set, a tall and lithe ostler was cutting the pigeon wing, greatly to his own satisfaction and the amusement of his partner and the spectators.

But the most noted figure in the group was the "chef de cuisine," which, vulgarly interpreted, means "head cook." With a skin as black as night and as slick as a billiard ball, a figure that did not belie his calling, and dressed in a style becoming his figure, he looked every inch like a black Count Fosco. Disdaining the stately walking, which is mis-named dancing in these latter days, he pirouetted with a grace and precision which would have reflected credit upon the ballet master of the "Black Crook."

After a few cotillions had been disposed of, the company were marched to the dining room of the hotel, where a most elegant and bountiful supper had been prepared for them. Amid speeches, toasts and sentiments, sardines, marmalades, ices, cakes and jellies, were disposed of, and the order was given, "On with the dance," and the ball room again re-echoed to the sounds of music, and trembled under the rapid steps of the dancers.

Just at 12 o'clock, the leader of the band tapped his violin and notified the company that he could not violate either his own convictions, or the proprieties of life, by flourishing his bow on the Sabbath, and silence like a pall suddenly fell upon the scene.

We have long been acquainted with the emotional character of the negro, but we never before witnessed so marked an instance of his capacity to change "From grave to gay, from lively to severe."

After a few hurried and whispered conversations, it was, by common consent, agreed to spend the remainder of the night in devotional exercises, and a hymn was raised by a small mahogany-colored man, in a long waistcoat and pumps, who had previously shown himself an adept in the saltatory art, and who now developed a voice of great power and sweetness. A gray-headed veteran of the cotton patch soon put in a crashing bass, and the other men and women swelled the volume of song with voices ranging from a true and smooth tenor to the sharp and fluttering notes of the loftiest treble or alto. At this point we withdrew and sought our couch, but late in the night we were awakened to hear the stentorian voice of the colored gentleman so expert at the double shuffle and cross hop early in the evening, pleading with fervor and unction for the Divine blessing upon wicked and wandering souls, the screams and shouts of a dusky belle under conviction, and the splendid chorus of more than fifty voices, led by the Count, as they sent down the valley by the springs, and over the hills in the soft moonlight, the echoes of
"Jerusalem, my happy home,
When shall I rest in thee?"