No. 11 Miss Jennia Jones
This childish drama has been familiar in the Middle States since the memory of the oldest inhabitant. The Scotch equivalent shows that the heroine’s name was originally Jenny jo. “Jo” is an old English word for sweetheart, probably a corruption of joy, French joie, used as a term of endearment. Jenny my joy has thus been modernized into Miss Jennia (commonly understood to be a contraction for Virginia) Jones!
The story is originally a love-tale. The young lady, like Rosetina in the Venetian song (a part of which we have translated above) dies of blighted affection and the prohibition of cruel parents. The suitor, in America, is represented by feminine friends. Yet the drama has lived; a proof that in singing and playing love-tales the children rather imitated their elders than followed a necessity of their own nature.
From various versions we select the following:
A mother, seated. Miss Jennia Jones stands behind her chair, or reclines on her lap as if lying sick. A dancer advances from the ring.
“I’ve come to see Miss Jennia Jones,
Miss Jennia Jones, Miss Jennia Jones—
I’ve come to see Miss Jennia Jones,
And how is she to-day?”
“She’s up-stairs washing,
Washing, washing—
She’s up-stairs washing,
You cannot see her to-day.”
The questions are repeated to the same air for every day of the week, and the reply is that Miss Jennia Jones is ironing, baking, or scrubbing. She is then represented as sick, as worse, and finally as dead, which announcement is received with signs of deep grief. The dancers of the ring then discuss the costume in which she shall be buried:
“What shall we dress her in,
Dress her in, dress her in;
What shall we dress her in—
Shall it be blue?”
“Blue is for sailors,
So that will never do.”
“What shall we dress her in,
Shall it be red?”
“Red is for firemen,
So that will never do.”
“Pink is for babies,
So that will never do.”
“Green is forsaken,
So that will never do.”
“Black is for mourners,
So that will never do.”
“White is for dead people,
So that will just do.”
“Where shall we bury her?
Under the apple-tree.”
After the ceremonies of burial have been completed, the ghost of Miss Jennia Jones suddenly arises—
“I dreamt I saw a ghost last night,
Ghost last night, ghost last night—
I dreamt I saw a ghost last night,
Under the apple-tree!”
The ring breaks up, and flies with shrieks, and the one caught is to represent Miss Jennia Jones.
An interesting feature of our game is the symbolism of color. “Each of these colors,” says an informant, “which denoted a profession, also typified a feeling. Thus, blue, which is said to be for sailors, suggested constancy.”
In one version of the game, which comes to us from an Irish source, green is for grief, red for joy, black for mourning, and white for death. In another such version, white is for angels, and is the chosen color; a reading we would willingly adopt, as probably more ancient, and as expressing the original seriousness of the whole, and the feeling which the color of white symbolized. In more common Irish phrase, green is for Irish, yellow for Orangemen. In Cincinnati, purple is for kings and queens, gray for Quakers. In a Connecticut variation, yellow is for glad folks.
An English saying corresponds closely to the significance of colors in our game:
Blue is true, yellow is jealous,
Green is forsaken, red is brazen,
White is love, and black is death.
A variation from West Virginia makes the question apply to the dress of the mourners, not of the deceased: “What shall we dress in?” “In our red, in our blue,” etc., are rejected, and the decision is, “In our white.”
Such imitations of burial ceremonies are not merely imaginative. It was once the custom for the girls of a village to take an active part in the interment of one of their number. In a Flemish town, a generation since, when a young girl died, her body was carried to the church, thence to the cemetery, by her former companions. “The religious ceremony over, and the coffin deposited in the earth, all the young girls, holding in one hand the mortuary cloth, returned to the church, chanting the maiden’s dance with a spirit and rhythm scarcely conceivable by one who has not heard it. The pall which they carried to the church was of sky-blue silk, having in the middle a great cross of white silk, on which were set three crowns of silver.”
The following is a rendering of the “Maiden’s Dance:”
In heaven is a dance;
Alleluia!
There dance all the maids;
Benedicamus Domino—
Alleluia!
It is for Amelia;
Alleluia!
We dance like the maids;
Benedicamus Domino—
Alleluia!
Such touching customs show the profound original earnestness underlying the modern child’s play, as well as the primitive religious significance of the dance. In England, too, it was the practice for the bearers of a virgin to be maids, as a ballad recites:
A garland fresh and faire
Of lilies there was made,
In signe of her virginity,
And on her coffin laid.
Six maidens, all in white,
Did beare her to the grave.