Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 / An Illustrated Weekly

A MOTHER'S ANXIETIES— WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE!

Blue violets open their saintly eyes, Red columbines bend and sway, White star-flowers twinkle in beds of moss, And, blooming, they seem to say, We bring you the red and the white and the blue To welcome Memorial-day. So gather them, children, at earliest dawn, While yet they are fresh with dew, And we'll scatter them over the sacred mounds Where slumber our soldiers true; For we'll give them only the colors they loved— The red and the white and the blue.
Hurrah! hurrah! Now for a long play-day; the school-master's a witch, and we are free; and some twenty boys came flocking and tumbling out of the school-house door, and went swarming up the street. Not much like the boys of to-day, except for the noise, were these twenty youngsters of nearly two centuries ago, who skipped and ran up the streets of Boston, dressed in their long square-skirted coats, small-clothes, long stockings, and low shoes with their cherished buckles of silver or brass. And very different from to-day were the streets through which they passed as they flocked homeward talking of the master.
He'll have naught to do but learn of the Black Man now; they do say he rides his ferule and bunch of twigs high up in the air, like Mistress Hibbins used her broom-stick, cried William Bartholomew, the sneak of the school.
He best have been switching thee with it, then, cried Jonathan Winthrop. Thou never hast thy share of the whippings—does he, mates? and frank-faced Jonathan turned to his companions.
Truly thou and I, Jonathan, need not complain that we have not our share of the fun and the twigs, laughed Christopher Corwin, as he laid his arm on Jonathan's, and shrugged his shoulders at the thought of numerous beatings. For Jonathan Winthrop and Christopher Corwin, with their plots and pranks, were enough to make poor Master Halleck sell his soul to the Evil One, as report said he had done.
His ferule was sharp as a knife, said overgrown Jo Tucker, the butt of the school.