Shivaree

My mother spent her honeymoon in a cabin near the top of a mountain. I grew up on the stories she told of life at a lumberjack camp in the Adirondacks. On her first night in the cabin, Mother put on her cotton night shift and prepared for bed. She didn't have silks and satins. She made her nighties from flour sacks.

As she turned out the kerosene lantern, they lay back to enjoy the quiet peacefulness of the mountain. Suddenly, the quiet was shattered by loud yells, whooping and banging on the wash tub. It was a shivaree, a wedding ritual in some rural places at the time. It went on most of the night until the keg ran out and the participants passed out. My mother never forgot her first taste of married life in a lumber camp.