Part 6 (1/2)
”I heard several lectures while I was there, too. One was by a man who has made a name for himself on both sides of the water as a scientist and a liberal thinker. He took up Genesis, all scratched and battered as it is by critics, and showed us how it had been misunderstood and misconstrued. And by the time he'd polished up the meaning here and there, so that we could see the original grain of the wood, what it was first intended to be, it seemed like a new book, and fitted in with all the modern scientific ideas as if it had been made only yesterday.
”There it stood, like the mahogany table that had been restored after people thought they had stowed it away in the attic to stay. Just as firm on its legs, and as substantial for this generation to put its faith on, as it was in the days of the Judges.
”Take an old man's word for it, Robert, who has lived a long time and seen many a restless Dunk Smith fling out his father's old heirlooms, in his fever to move on to something new. Solid mahogany, with all its dust and scratches, is better than the modern flimsy stuff, either in faith or furniture, that he is apt to pick up in its stead.”
Chapter IX
THE booming of distant cannon had been sounding at intervals since midnight, ushering in the Fourth, but Bowser, although disturbed in his slumbers by each reverberation, did not rouse himself to any personal demonstration until dawn. Then his patriotism manifested itself in a noisy tattoo with a hammer, as he made the front of his store gay with bunting, and nailed the word _Welcome_ over the door, in gigantic letters of red, white, and blue.
When he was done, each window wore a bristling eyebrow of stiff little flags, that gave the store an air of mild surprise. The effect was wholly unintentional on Bowser's part, and, unconscious of the likeness to human eyes he had given his windows, he gazed at his work with deep satisfaction.
But the expression was an appropriate one, considering all the astonis.h.i.+ng sights the old store was to look upon that day. In the woodland across the railroad track, just beyond Miss Anastasia Dill's little cottage, preparations were already begun for a grand barbecue.
Even before Bowser had finished tacking up his flags, the digging of the trench had begun across the way, and the erection of a platform for the speakers. In one corner of the woodland a primitive merry-go-round had already been set in place, and the first pa.s.senger train from the city deposited an enterprising hoky-poky man, a peanut and pop-corn vender, and a lank black-bearded man with an outfit for taking tin-types.
By ten o'clock the wood-lot fence was a hitching-place for all varieties of vehicles, from narrow sulkies to cavernous old carryalls. A haze of thick yellow dust, extending along the pike as far as one could see, was a constant accompaniment of fresh arrivals. Each newcomer emerged from it, his Sunday hat and coat powdered as thickly as the wayside weeds.
Smart side-bar buggies dashed up, their s.h.i.+ning new tops completely covered with it. There was a great shaking of skirts as the girls alighted, and a great flapping of highly perfumed handkerchiefs, as the young country beaux made themselves presentable, before joining the other picnickers.
Slow-going farm wagons rattled along, the occupants of their jolting chairs often representing several generations, for the drawing power of a Fourth of July barbecue reaches from the cradle to the grave.
The unusual sight of such a crowd, scattered through the grove in gala attire, was enough of itself to produce a holiday thrill, and added to this was the smell of gunpowder from occasional outbursts of firecrackers, the chant of the hoky-poky man, and the hysterical laughter of the couples patronising the merry-go-round, as they clung giddily to the necks of the wooden ostriches and camels in the first delights of its dizzy whirl.
”Good as a circus, isn't it?” exclaimed Robert Akers, pausing beside the bench where the old miller and the minister sat watching the gay scene. ”I'm having my fun walking around and taking notes. It is amusing to see how differently the affair impresses people, and what seems to make each fellow happiest. Little Tommy Bowser, for instance, is in the seventh heaven following the hoky-poky man. He gets all that people leave in their dishes for helping to drum up a crowd of patrons.
Perkins's boy sticks by the merry-go-round. He has spent every cent of his own money, and had so many treats that he's spun around till he's so dizzy he's cross-eyed. One old fellow I saw back there is simply sitting on the fence grinning at everything that goes by. He's getting his enjoyment in job lots.”
”Sit down,” said the minister, sociably moving along the bench to make room beside him for the young man. ”Mr. Holmes and I are finding our amus.e.m.e.nt in the same way, only we are not going around in search of it.
We are catching at it as it drifts by.”
”What has happened to Mrs. Teddy Mahone?” exclaimed Rob, as a red-faced woman with an important self-conscious air hurried by. ”She seems ubiquitous this morning, and as proud as a peac.o.c.k over something. One would think she were the mistress of ceremonies from her manner.”
”Or hostess, rather,” said the miller. ”She met me down by the fence on my arrival, and held out her hand as graciously as if she were a d.u.c.h.ess in her own drawing-room, and I an invited guest.
”'Gude marnin' to yez, Mr. Holmes,' she said. 'I hope ye'll be afther enjyin' yerself the day. If anything intherferes wid yer comfort ye've but to shpake to Mahone about it. He's been appinted _constable_ for the occasion, ye understhand. If I do say it as oughtn't, he can carry the t.i.tle wid the best av 'im; him six fut two in his stockin's, an' the shtar s.h.i.+nin' on his wes'cut loike he'd been barn to the job.'
”Then she turned to greet some strangers from Morristown, and I heard her introducing herself as Mrs. _Constable_ Mahone, and repeating the same instructions she had given me, to report to her husband, in case everything was not to their liking.”
Both listeners laughed at the miller's imitation of her brogue, and the minister quoted, with an amused smile:
”'For never t.i.tle yet so mean could prove, But there was eke a mind, which did that t.i.tle love.'
It is a pity we cannot dress more of them in 'a little brief authority.' It seems to be a means of grace to a certain cla.s.s of Hibernians. It has Americanised the Mahones, for instance. You'll find no patriots on the ground to-day more enthusiastic than Mr. and Mrs.
Constable Mahone. Fourth of July will be an honoured feast-day henceforth in their calendar. It is often surprising how quickly a policeman's b.u.t.tons and billy will make a good citizen out of the wildest bog-trotter that ever brandished a s.h.i.+llalah.”
Later, in subsequent wanderings around the grounds, the young collegian spied the little schoolmistress helping to keep guard over the cake-table. He immediately crossed over and joined her. She was looking unusually pretty, and there was an amused gleam in her eyes as she watched the crowds, which made him feel that she was viewing the scene from his standpoint; that he had found a kindred spirit.