CHAPTER VII.—­The Spinster’s Kemp.

A kemp, or camp, is a contest of industrial skill, or a competition for priority in a display of rustic labor.  Among men it is principally resorted to in planting potatoes or reaping of corn, and generally only on the day which closes the labor at each for the season; but in the sense in which it is most usually practised and contested, it means a trial of female skill at the spinning of linen yarn.  It is, indeed, a very cheerful assemblage of the fair sex; and, although strong and desperate rivalry is the order of the day, yet it is conducted in a spirit so light-hearted and amicable that we scarcely know a more laudable or delightful recreation in country life.  Its object is always good, and its associations praiseworthy, inasmuch as they promote industry, a spirit of becoming emulation, and principles of good will and kindness to our neighbor.

When a kemp is about to be held, the matter soon becomes generally known in the neighborhood.  Sometimes the young women are asked, but in most instances, so eager are they to attend it that invitations are unnecessary.  In the whiter months, and in mountain districts, it is often as picturesque as it is pleasant.  The young women usually begin to assemble about four o’clock in the morning; and, as they always go in groups, accompanied besides by their sweethearts or some male relatives, each of the latter bearing a large torch of well-dried bogfir, their voices, and songs, and loud laughter break upon the stillness of night with a holiday feeling, made ten times more delightful by the surrounding darkness and the hour.  When they have not the torches the spinning-wheels are carried by the males, amidst an agreeable din of fun, banter, repartee, and jest, such as scarcely any other rustic amusement with which we are acquainted ever occasions.  On arriving at the house where the kemp is to be held, they are placed in the barn or some clean outhouse; but indeed the numbers are usually such as to crowd every available place that can be procured for their accommodation.  From the moment they arrive the lively din is incessant.  Nothing is heard but laughter, conversation, songs, and anecdotes, all rising in a loud key, among the louder humming of the spinning-wheels and the stridulous noise of the reeds, as they incessantly crack the cuts in the hands of the reelers, who are perpetually turning them from morning to night, in order to ascertain the quantity which every competitor has spun; and she, of course, who has spun most wins the kemp, and is the queen for the night.

A kemp invariably closes with a dance—­and a dance too upon an unusually extensive scale.  Indeed, during the whole day the fair competitors are regaled from time to time with the enlivening strains of the fiddle or bagpipes, and very often with the united melody of both together.