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Liberty And Union

Liberty And Union image
Parent Issue
Day
13
Month
August
Year
1884
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

It seems to me that tho Fourth of Julv is a qnietet festival than it usod to be. It mav bc that we spread it over ;i (treater part of the raar now -¦¦ ; .- bo that i am growing oíd and a liltle foggisb, but any how I don't think tlie boys mix their colors quito so lrilli:intly when they go out to put the high light on the town as thcy u.sed to. Still. they secin to enjoy it. I am ashnmed to teil how many firecrackers and torpedoes and Roman candios and pin wheels I bought for the Prinee and vet they were all used up. I will also confess that while touehing off those iireworks that I bought "just to please the boy," I feit very likeainan of forty-eight years who takes a baby of four months old to the circus "to see the animáis." I confess to a depraved enjoyruenl in the small but earnest iirecracker. On this point I am a firm friend of the Chinaman, and as I am not running for President I don't care a cent who knows it. 1 teil yon, bird of the broad and sweeping wing, the last Fourth of Julv before the war was one that was writti'ii upon my heart with a pen of iron and on my back with a skate .strap. She was a screamor - the Fourth of Julv. not the skate strap. We got ready for that Fourth. John found a piece of inch gas pipe about a foot and a half long. and we made a cannon of it, but secretly, for fear of the Sanhedrin. We strappod it on to a big block. We loaded it. I chucked in the powder. "Put in plenty," said Johu, and I poured in some more. Then I ramnied down a wad of dry paper. Then John raiuraed down a wad of wet paper. "Thut'll make her crack," he said. Then I pounded in a stone marble. "That'll make her ring," I said. Then John rammed down another wad of wet paper. "That'll make her. boom," said that enthusiastic artillerist, "now Iets put her away to dry, and when she goes off to-morrow morning,the cellar walls will fallin." Q'hat was July third eleven a.m. We set her away to dry The rest of the powder, a pound and a half or so, we wrapped in brown paper and carried upstairs and put it away in John's trunk, where it would be safe in case the woodshed caught lire. Then we made a flag. That is, we cut out the stars and one of our sisters made the flag. This we did openly as within the law. The flag of the free heart's hope and home was not completed until late at night, and thon there was a motto to be painted on the milky baldric of the skies, with streakings of lampblack and turpentine. We spread the symbol of our chosen land down on the sitting room floor, and by the dim religious light of a fitful kerosene lamp I painted in bold capitals "Liberty and Union." This work was done with muffled oars, bocause the Sanhedrin had gone to bed, and was known to be averse to this kind of midnight revelry. When the motto was completed John kicked over tho lamp, smashing the chimney, narrowly escaping an explosión and iilling the camp with consternation, in the niidst of which we sternly ordered our sister to her room, because the more intensely sibillant became our whispers, and the more we tried to make her hush, and the more we blisterud our startled lingers on stray pieces of red hot lamp chimney, ambushed in the dark, and the more ominous grew the listening silence from the apartment where tlte Sanhedrin slept, the more she giggled. "Anvthing," said John, "but agiggling girl?"" I was going to add something far more sarcastic and bitter, but just then mygroping fingers closed on a spherical fragment of the chimney that had been nearest the wiek, and this trilling incident turned the drift of my thought and materially altered the nature of my subsequent remarks. 1 thought Mollie would perish from excessive mirth. And just then, when a voice from the Sanhedrin demanded a report from the Executive Committee, we boys wore oompelled by force of circumstancos, to lay violent hands upon our sister and stille her with a jacket and a table cover, and the deep silence that canie into that dark room on its tip-toes and walkcd around in list slippers, was only broken by an occasional smothorod giggle that escapcd from our vigilant clulches. When all was well and one of the boys had made an cvasive report and asked for more time, 1 groped my way to I the pantry for another chimney, and stepped into a steel rat trap which caught me around the heel with the savage grip of a new bont, and there was a moment of 8uppresed eniotioii that could not be doseribed by a guideI book. The lamp was Ughted. A moment our eyes turned to where the sky-borq glories of our llag burned, and then i proudly, joyously we liftod it from the Hoor. Alas, its earth-born glories had burned throngh. There, before our gaze, raggedly, yet distinctly limned mi the light ground of the cariet, like the I wild wreatba from cannon moathingi loud, "Liberty und Union" looked up at us. We feit that while the sentiment was patriotic and proper, yet it was out of place on a sitting room carpet in the home of a citizen of rotined and quiot taste. All evos at last turnedon the speakor, and 1 feit that as 1 had mixed the paint and lettorod tin: logend myself, soma OVj.lillKUilyli vn.. ItouamiV. ÖU I IO)Ü my sister she might have had more sense. ïhen I told John any boy of half his age would have knówn 'that paint wuulil run throagh, and eonelmled by saying tbat 1 told theni so, This explanation was considerad eniineutly satisfactory. I took some benzine and tiied to] Oblitérate the patriotie .sentiment that laj like Freedom's soil beneath our feet. I could not destroy the "Union;" i that was, and is impossible, but I olooded itall over that end of the room, mixed it in with "Liberty" and ruu the wtiole thing over two breadths of carpet. i Somehow the coming dawu seemed ¦everal bours nearer at hand than it was a moment before. Few and short were, the prayers we said, but we climbed out on the roof and run that liag of thü brave to the masthead, and smiled bit-i teil)7 to see its splendors fly in triumphi over that nocturne in lampblaok down on the sitting room carpet. We bittoiiv thoughtof tho morrow as we separated tot the night, and with heavy lie.ins we boys crept into bod and wondercd it" wo, w..U„'t .. 1 ...., . OL...1. , vl HUT UUT. A single mcllow note, like the soft eall of a joyous bird, came rippling down the hall from Mollie's room. She's laughing again," said John,,' in bonos of awed ama.cment. "Tton." Isaid, "abe bas fallen out ol the window. Nothing elso funny could happen to-night. " But a boy's thoughts are the wind's thoughts, and the griefs of bo}rhood are transient. Dayligntsaw usdressed and ready to sliake up the neighborhood. We plantod our cannon on the cistoru box, poiuted it at the suminur kitcheu and touched il off' with a long piecè of paper. She was all our fancy painted her. . She went with a bang that would have excited the envy of Langtry, and woke' every dog and taxpayer in the Seeond Hard, and Sanford street ran out and began to ghriek "Fire!" There was a whirr like the rush of a cyclone as our battery recoiled, and went tumbling through the air bet ween our heads,, huitling olear across the yard and knocking a board off Neighbor Shutt'a fence. We went into the kitohen. Tho Jtone marble had banged through the light woodwork, knoekeu a glass pitcher in more direetions than we had time to Boonta split a porcelaju kettle and ground itsolf to powder on a sturdy little iron pot that sat ou the stove. We went out into the yard again and sat down without cxehanging congratulatory messagos on the suecessful wolk of flic eonvention. There seemed to bo an ezoesa of povror in the programme that we had not anticipated or desired. But we feit better when we oeased to tremble and buntedopthe cannon. We found it all ready for another hurrah. Eacb artillerist bated to own up that he had had onough in the first saluto, and I tliink we were greatly relieved when wo diseovered that tlie papel of pou der in the excitement of the moment had boen left lying.'in front of the gun, and had gone off in the general explosión. We didn't know where it went to, but t was gone, leaving no trace exeept an odor of ozone. that was perceptible from Frank Fields' bakery to Kickapoo Creek. We feit so mueh relieved to find our powder was gone that we began to say, with one accord, that we were going to put in twice as big a load next time. Thon we went arouud to the front of the house to wake up the girls. This simple feat we easily accomplished by throwing a cluster of about two dozen tire-craokers in through their opon wndow. Theo we ran around to the sido, poroh and waited for the fusilado and screamingto begin. "I wonder if Molliewill laugh now?" said John. I don't remember whether she did or not. I know that if there was any unseemly levity duringthe performance of the following act in the drama of Liberty and Union I took no part in it. We heard the Sre-oraokers begin a rattling fusilado and then they were drowned in a chorus of shrieks; then a man down streot halloed "Fire!" and a man np stroot shouted "Fire!" The excitement and enthusiasm appeared to be growing more general in its charaoter and "Liberty and l'nion" stock booniod right np and touched the highest liguros of the open board, 234f. We rushed around in front to get a full view of the tableau, and saw more smoke than we gnpposed could easily pourout of one pair ol wiudowa, even if the curtains wore on fire. The rallywas of short duration; the tiro u.iquickly subdued with no very scrious damage, and Liberty and l'nion brolca down to 42 on the next deal, falling to :; I . offerod at 23 and closed at lüi bid. When we went in to surrender our stook and resign our seats on the board the Sanhcdrin was contemplating the plant on the eariiot. Dearly beloved, 1 am growing old, nnd soon the place hicb now knowsme will know me better than it did when I lirst came here. But in all the ohanging scones that have checkered my rocklr-career and spring clothec, I have never seen such anothoi Fourth of Juiy ai that which spread itsglitteringwingsin the full orbed glory of a clouïlew daWD, fluttorcd for a few brief inonionlin a bright atmosphere of lmovant hop and laughing joy and then sat down ii. tho doad embers of a blighted dream. with ashes on its head anddustoits Upa, and wrapped itsolf in a cloud o! gloom :u M big as a goipel tent. What ho, F.liogarbalus! Saokolotr and toar jngs for two'.-í-Soíérí J. Bttrdette, in Brooklyn Earle. - The later-t moustnity that bas arrivoil in this country is a young (ierniar girl, abont sbt years old, with a bean Dearly half an inch long, with a dark color, and a fullv dovoloped mustache. A car ago tho child had no liirsute appendage, aod was v all appearances liko othor childii'ii of hor ago. A fr months later -.i fine dow n began to shov on hor cheeks and chin, and this bat gradually dereloped. The beard on the taco of Mich a small child, who hxs an almost infantili' expreauion, gies hor a Deculiar aoDearanoe. she resides in

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Subjects
Ann Arbor Courier
Old News