Poganuc in its summer dress was a beautiful place. Its main street had a row of dignified white houses, with deep door−yards and large side−gardens, where the great scarlet peony flamed forth, where were generous tufts of white lilies, with tall spires of saintly blossoms, and yellow lilies with their faint sweet perfume, and all the good old orthodox flowers of stately family and valid pretensions. In all the door−yards and along the grassy streets on either side were over−shadowing, long−branching trees, forming a roof of verdure, a green upper world from whose recesses birds dropped down their songs in languages unknown to us mortals. Who shall interpret what is meant by the sweet jargon of robin and oriole and bobolink, with their endless reiterations? Something wiser, perhaps, than we dream of in our lower life here.
Not a bit, however, did Hiel Jones trouble his head on this subject as he came in on his high stage seat in lordly style on the evening of the third of July. Far other cares were in Hiel's head, for to−morrow was the glorious Fourth the only really secular fte known to the Yankee mind and a great celebration thereof had been resolved on by the magnates of Poganuc, and Hiel was captain of the "Poganuc Rangers" a flourishing militia company which was to be the ornament of the forthcoming celebration. It had been agreed for that time to drop all political distinctions. Federalists and Democrats, Town Hill folk and outside folk, were all of one mind and spirit to make this a celebration worthy of Poganuc Center and the great cause of American Independence. A veritable cannon had been hauled up upon the village green and fired once or twice to relieve the bursting impatience of the boys and men who had helped put it there. The flag with its stars and stripes was already waving from the top of the Court−house, and a platform was being put up in the Meeting−house, and people were running this way and that, and standing in house−doors, and talking with each other over fences, in a way that showed that something was impending.
Hiel sprang from his box, and, after attending to his horses, speedily appeared on the green to see to things for how could the celebration to−morrow be properly presented without Hiel's counsels?
CHAPTER XVII. SPRING AND SUMMER COME AT LAST.
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"Look here, now, boys," he said to the group assembled around the cannon, "don't be a burnin' out yer powder. Keep it for to−morrow. Let her be now; ye don't want to keep bangin' and bangin' afore the time.
To−morrow mornin' we'll let 'er rip bright and early, and wake all the folks. Clear out, now, and go home to yer suppers, and don't be a blowin' yerselves up with powder so that ye can't see the show to−morrow."
Hiel then proceeded into the Meeting−house and criticised proceedings there.
"Look here, Jake, you jest stretch that air carpet a leetle forrard; ye see, ye want the most out in front where't shows; back there, why, the chairs and table'll kiver it; it ain't so much matter. Wonder now ef them air boards is firm? Wouldn't do, lettin' on 'em all down into the pews in the midst on't. Look here, Seth Chickering, ye need another prop under there; ye hain't calkerlated for the heft o' them fellers governors and colonels and ministers weighs putty heavy, and there ain't no glory in a gineral smash−up, and we're a goin' in for glory to−morrow; we're goin' to sarve it out clear, and no mistake."
Hiel was a general favorite; his word of criticism was duly accepted, and things were pretty comfortably adjusted to his mind when he went home to eat his supper and try on his regimentals.
The dry, hard, colorless life of a Yankee boy in those days found some relief in the periods called
"training−days," when the militia assembled in uniform and marched and drilled to the sound of fife and drum. Hiel had expended quite a round sum upon his uniform and was not insensible to the transformation which it wrought in his personal appearance.
The widow Jones kept his gold−laced cocked−hat, his bright gold epaulets, his whole soldier suit in fact, enveloped in many papers and napkins, and locked away in one of her most sacred recesses; but it was with pride that she gave him up the key, and when he came out before her, all in full array, her soul was inly uplifted. Her son was a hero in her eyes.
"It's all right, Mother, I believe," said Hiel, surveying himself first over one shoulder and then the other, and consulting the looking−glass fringed with gilt knobs that hung in the widow's "keeping−room."
"Yes, indeed, Hiel, it's all right. I've kep' camphor gum with it to keep out the moths, and wrapped it up to save the gold, and I don't see that it's a grain altered since it came home new. It's just as new as ever 'twas."
Hiel may be pardoned for smiling somewhat complacently on the image in the glass which certainly was that of a very comely youth and when he reflected that Nabby would to−morrow see him at the head of his company his heart swelled with a secret exultation. It is not alone the privilege of the fair sex to know when things are becoming to them, and Hiel knew when he looked well, as surely as if any one had told him. He gave himself a patronizing wink and whistled a strain of "Yankee Doodle" as he turned away from the glass, perhaps justly confiding in the immemorial power which military trappings have always exercised over the female heart.
It was with reluctance that he laid aside the fascinating costume, and set himself to brightening up here and there a spot upon his sword−hilt or blade that called for an extra touch.
"We must have breakfast early to−morrow, Mother; the boys will be here by sunrise."
"Never you fear," said the widow. "I've got everything ready, and we'll be all through by that time; but it's as well to get to bed now."
And so in a few minutes more the candles were out and only the sound of the frogs and the whippoorwills broke the stillness of the cottage. Long before the nine o'clock bell rung Hiel and his mother were happy in CHAPTER XVII. SPRING AND SUMMER COME AT LAST.
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the land of dreams.
In the parsonage, too, there had been an effort of discipline to produce the needed stillness and early hours called for by to−morrow's exactions.
The boys, who had assisted at the dragging in of the cannon and heard its first reverberation, were in a most inflammatory state of patriotism, longing wildly for gunpowder. In those days no fire−crackers or other vents of the kind had been provided for the relief of boys under pressure of excitement, and so they were forced to become explosive material themselves, and the walls of the parsonage rang with the sound. Dolly also was flying wildly around, asking Nabby questions about to−morrow and running away before she got her answer, to listen to some new outburst from the boys.
Nabby, however, had her own very decisive ways of putting things, and settled matters at last by putting her to bed, saying as she did so, "Now, Dolly Cushing, you just shut up. You are crazier than a bobolink, and if you don't be still and go to sleep I won't touch to take you with me to see the trainers to−morrow. Your ma said you might go with me if you'd be good; so you just shut up and go to sleep;" and Dolly shut her eyes hard and tried to obey.
We shall not say that there were not some corresponding movements before the glass on the part of Nabby before retiring. It certainly came into her head to try on her bonnet, which had been thriftily re−trimmed and re−arranged for summer use since the time of that sleigh−ride with Hiel. Moreover, she chose out her gown and sorted a knot of ribbons to go with it. "I suppose," she said to herself, "all the girls will be making fools of themselves about Hiel Jones to−morrow, but I ain't a going to." Nevertheless, she thought there was no harm in looking as well as she could.
CHAPTER XVIII. DOLLY'S "FOURTH."
BANG! went the cannon on the green, just as the first red streak appeared over Poganuc hills, and open flew Dolly's great blue eyes. Every boy in town was out of bed as if he had been fired out of a pop−gun, and into his clothes and out on the green with a celerity scarcely short of the miraculous. Dolly's little toilet took more time; but she, too, was soon out upon the scene wit
h her curls in a wild, unbrushed tangle, her little breast swelling and beating with a great enthusiasm for General Washington and liberty and her country, all of which were somehow to be illustrated and honored that day in Poganuc.
As the first rays of the rising sun struck the stars and stripes floating over the Court−house, and the sound of distant drum and fife announced the coming in of the Poganuc Rangers, Dolly was so excited that she burst into tears. "What in the world are you crying for, Dolly?" said Bill rather impatiently. "I don't see any thing to cry about."
"I can't help it, Will," said Dolly, wiping her eyes, "it's so glorious!"
"If that isn't just like a girl!" said Bill. Contempt could go no farther, and Dolly retreated abashed. She was a girl there was no help for that; but for this one day she envied the boys the happy boys who might some day grow up and fight for their country, and do something glorious like General Washington. Meanwhile, from mouth to mouth, every one was giving in advance an idea of what the splendors of the day were to be.
"I tell ye," said Abe Bowles, "this 'ere's goin' to be a reel slam−bang, this 'ere is. Colonel Davenport is a goin'
to review the troops, and wear the very same uniform he wore at Long Island."
"Yes," said Liph Kingsley, "and old C¾sar's goin' to wear his uniform and wait on the colonel. Tell ye what, CHAPTER XVIII. DOLLY'S "FOURTH."
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the old snowball is on his high heels this morning got a suit of the colonel's old uniform. Won't he strut and show his ivories!"
"Hulloa, boys, there's going to be a sham fight; Hiel told me so," said Bob Cushing. "Some are going to be British and some Americans, and the Americans are going to whip the British and make 'em run."
"Tell ye what," said Jake Freeman, "there'll be a bangin' and poppin'! won't there, boys!"
"Oh," said Dolly, who irrepressibly was following her brothers into the throng, "they won't really shoot anybody, will they?"
"Oh, no, they'll only fire powder, of course," said Bill majestically; "don't you know that?"
Dolly was rebuked and relieved at once.
"I say, boys," said Nabby, appearing suddenly among the throng, "your ma says you must come right home to breakfast this minit; and you, Dolly Cushing, what are you out here for, round among the fellers like a tom−boy? Come right home."
"Why, Nabby, I wanted to see!" pleaded Dolly.
"Oh yes, you're allers up to everything and into everything, and your hair not brushed nor nothin'. You'll see it all in good time come right away. Don't be a−lookin' at them trainers, now," she added, giving herself, however, a good observing glance to where across the green a knot of the Poganuc Rangers were collecting, and where Hiel, in full glory of his uniform, with his gold epaulets and cocked hat, was as busy and impressive as became the situation. "Oh, Nabby, do look; there's Hiel," cried Dolly.
"Yes, yes; I see plain enough there's Hiel," said Nabby; "he thinks he's mighty grand, I suppose. He'll be conceiteder'n ever, I expect."
Just at that moment Hiel, recognizing Nabby, took off his gold−laced hat and bowed with a graceful flourish.
Nabby returned a patronizing little nod, and either the morning dawn, or the recent heat of the kitchen fire, or something, flushed her cheeks. It was to be remarked in evidence of the presence of mind that distinguishes the female sex that, though she had been sent out on a hurried errand to call the children, yet she had on her best bonnet, and every curl of her hair had evidently been carefully and properly attended to that morning.
"Of course, I wasn't going to look like a fright," she soliloquized. "Not that I care for any of 'em; but looks is looks any time o' day."
At the minister's breakfast−table the approaching solemnities were discussed. The procession was to form at the Court−house at nine o'clock. Democrats and Federalists had united to distribute impartially as possible the honors of the day. As Col. Davenport, the only real live revolutionary officer the county boasted, was an essential element of the show, and as he was a staunch Federalist, it was necessary to be conciliatory. Then there was the Federal ex−Governor to sit on the platform with the newly elected Democratic Governor. The services were in the Meeting−house, as the largest building in town; and Dr. Cushing was appointed to make the opening prayer. As a compliment to the Episcopal Church the Federal members of the committee allotted a closing prayer to the Reverend Simeon Coan.
That young man, however, faithful to the logic of his creed, politely declined joining in public services where his assisting might be held to recognize the ordination of an unauthorized sectarian preacher, and so the Rev.
CHAPTER XVIII. DOLLY'S "FOURTH."
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Dr. Goodman, of Skantic, was appointed in his place.
Squire Lewis was observed slightly to elevate his eye−brows and shrug his shoulders as he communicated to the committee the grounds of his rector's refusal. He was in fact annoyed, and a little embarrassed, by the dry, amused expression of Sheriff Dennie's countenance.
"Oh, speak it all out; never fear, Lewis," he said. "I like to see a man face the music. Your minister is a logical fellow, and keeps straight up to what he teaches. You old Episcopalians were getting loose in your ideas; you needed cording up." "There's such a thing as cording too tight and breaking a string sometimes,"
muttered the Squire, who was not well pleased at the scruple that kept his church unrepresented in the exercises.
The domestic arrangements for the parson's family were announced at the breakfast table. The boys were endowed with the magnificent sum of six cents each and turned loose for the day, with the parting admonition to keep clear of powder a most hopeless and unnecessary charge, since powder was the very heart and essence of all the glory of the day.
At an early hour the bell of the Meeting−house rang out over all the neighboring hills and valleys; the summons was replied to by streams of wagons on the roads leading to Poganuc for a square of ten miles round. Not merely Poganuc North, South, East, West, and Center was in motion, but several adjacent towns and villages sent forth their trainers bands of militia, who rose about midnight and marched till morning to be on time.
By nine o'clock nominally (but far nearer to ten really) the procession started from the Courthouse with drum and fife and banners. Dolly had been committed for the day to the charge of Nabby, who should see that she took no harm, and engineer for her the best chances of seeing all that went on; while Mrs. Cushing, relieved of this care, took her seat quietly among the matronage of Poganuc and waited for the entrance of the procession. But Dolly saw them start from the Court−house, with beat of drum and peal of fife; and Dolly saw the banners, and saw Colonel Davenport with his white hair and splendid physique, now more splendid in the blue and gold of his military dress; and they all marched with majestic tread towards the meeting−house. Then Nabby hurried with her charge and got for her a seat by herself in the front singers' seat in the gallery, where she could see them all file in and take their seats on the platform. Nabby had been one of the flowers of this singers' seat before her father's change of base had transferred her to the Episcopal Church, and her presence to−day was welcomed by many old friends for Nabby had a good, strong clear voice of her own, and was no small addition to the choral force.
The services opened by the national Puritan psalm:
"Let children hear the mighty deeds Which God performed of old, Which in our younger years we saw And which our fathers told.
"Our lips shall teach them to our sons, And they again to theirs, That generations yet unborn May teach them to their heirs. "That they may learn, in God alone Their hope securely stands; That they may ne'er his laws forget, But practice his commands."
The wild warble of "St. Martin's," the appointed tune whose wings bore these words, swelled and billowed and reverberated through the house, carrying with it that indefinable thrill which always fills a house when
deep emotions are touched deepest among people habitually reserved and reticent of outward demonstration. It was this solemn undertone, this mysterious, throbbing sub−bass of repressed emotion, which gave the power and effect to the Puritan music. After the singing came Dr. Cushing's prayer which was a recounting of God's mercies to New England from the beginning, and of his deliverances from her CHAPTER XVIII. DOLLY'S "FOURTH."
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enemies, and of petitions for the glorious future of the United States of America that they might be chosen vessels, commissioned to bear the light of liberty and religion through all the earth and to bring in the great millennial day, when wars should cease and the whole world, released from the thraldom of evil, should rejoice in the light of the Lord.
The millennium was ever the star of hope in the eyes of the New England clergy: their faces were set eastward, towards the dawn of that day, and the cheerfulness of those anticipations illuminated the hard tenets of their theology with a rosy glow. They were children of the morning. The Doctor, however, did not fail to make use of his privilege to give some very decided political hits, and some petitions arose which caused sensation between the different parties. The New England clergyman on these occasions had his political antagonists at decided advantage. If he could not speak at them he could pray at them, and of course there was no reply to an impeachment in the court of heaven. So when the Doctor's prayer was over, glances were interchanged, showing the satisfaction or dissatisfaction, as might be, of the listeners.