words: strawfoot and hayfoot
context:
”Hear that, Amelia? The lady says we never learnt no manners! Hands up all who goes to dancing class! Hands up all who know strawfoot from hayfoot! My word, she should see some of our barn dances!”
definition: the strawfoot is the right foot, the hayfoot the left. According to an American Heritage article, during the US Civil War “the drill sergeants repeatedly found that among the raw recruits there were men so abysmally untaught that they did not know left from right, and hence could not step off on the left foot as all soldiers should. To teach these lads how to march, the sergeants would tie a wisp of hay to the left foot and a wisp of straw to the right; then, setting the men to march, they would chant, ‘Hay-foot, straw-foot, hay-foot, straw-foot’—and so on, until everybody had caught on. A common name for a green recruit in those days was “strawfoot.”
The mouse rescuers of the Prisoners’ Aid Society are on their way to the Black Castle to save an imprisoned poet. They’ve stowed away on a supply caravan. The journey lasts several days, so the carriage drivers must camp along the way. At night, local, country mice clamber up to check out the provisions and socialize with Miss Bianca, Nils, and Bernard. Miss Bianca whispers about the lack of refinement of the country mice, but they have sharp ears.
source:
The Rescuers
by Margery Sharp
1959. A Yearling Book / Dell Publishing, New York
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