The Grand March.
“Please, aunty, lend me your wash-stick.”
As he spoke Charlie was all excitement, running eagerly from the barn into the house. Obtaining the coveted treasure, he as eagerly ran back. Two minutes passed.
“May I have the curtain-stick up in your chamber that you don’t want?”
“How do you know I don’t want it?”
“‘Cause it’s doing nothing, standing up in the corner.”
“O what eyes! Yes, you may have it.”
Three minutes went.
“Aunty, couldn’t I have the broom-handle out in the entry? Some of the boys knew you wouldn’t let me, but I said you would. I knew you would let a feller take it,” said the ingenious Charlie.
“For pity’s sake, Charles Pitt Macomber, what next?”
This was Charlie’s real name and used for greater impressiveness.
“That broom-handle is what I fasten the back window with, and if any bugglars get in tonight, I must blame you.”
However, Charlie carried his point. In a few minutes he appeared again, and pointed at his shoulder.
“Aunty, see here!”
“Why, Charles Pitt, what have you done to your shoulder?”
Charlie grinned. There, on the left shoulder, was a chalk shield. “Teacher, of course, must have time to make our silk shields, and so we got up these.”
Aunt Stanshy’s eyes let out some funny, bright sparks.
“O, no, it’s only the grand march.”
“The grand march!”
“Yes, and see here, aunty. I have only this chalk shield, and you don’t want your boy to go that way. Please let me take that old sword above the sitting-room mantel-piece,” pleaded Charlie, with beseeching eyes.
“Grandsir’s sword? O that wont do. Why, that sword was at the battles of Quebec and Banker Hill and Waterloo and—”
Constantia! In her loyalty to grandsir’s memory, she was unconsciously mentioning places he had never been in! All this array of names only fired Charlie’s ardor. At last Aunt Stanshy said, “There, take it! The next thing, I spose, you’ll want me.”
“We may; but you’d have to dress up in man’s clothes, you know.”
“Never!” said Aunt Stanshy, firmly. “Don’t go out of the lane with grandsir’s sword!”
“We’ll be along soon.”
“How will I know it? I may be up stairs.”
“We will give three cheers under the window.”
There was an increasing commotion in the barn chamber.
“Now, fellers!” exclaimed Sid Waters. “You won’t be ready for the grand march.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” they shouted back.
“Is the chariot ready for the president?” inquired Sid.
“Yes,” said Charlie, who purposed to furnish his go-cart for the occasion. “It’s down in the yard.”
“I have the first ride, you know.”
“And I the second,” said the governor.
“Yes, but the governor must go behind while the president rides.”
Rick’s heart sank within him, but all had promised to obey orders and there was no appeal.
“Every feller’s—I mean knight’s—uniform ready?” asked the president.
Charlie’s certainly was. Every moment he could spare out of school that day, he had been sewing in his snug little bedroom. Such stitches! They looked like pairs of bars trying to straddle a brush fence. For epaulets he arranged pieces of black cloth, the center of each being brightened with a strip of red. His belt was made of white flannel dotted with a flaming row of red stars, and with these were interspersed various sizes of mild chocolate suns. Each of the other warriors sported a chalk shield, as did Charlie. This was the only thing in common. Other insignia varied in character, color, and size, as much as would those of Chinese, Anglo-Saxon and Zulu troops. Pip Peckham, in his anxiety for distinction, had chalked a shield on each shoulder! The cheapness of the material used would readily permit this, but Pip’s appearance was insignificant beside Charlie’s, who strode forward to the march, flourishing grandsir’s sword. Not even Alexander, Julius Cæsar, Napoleon, or General Grant, ever had a sword to be compared with Charlie’s that day. The warriors moved out from their “armory” into the yard. Aunt Stanshy was up stairs making a bed. Suddenly under her window, arose a wild, semi-civilized, semi-barbarous shout.
“What is to pay?” she screamed. “O those little boobies!” and she sprang to the window. The “Grand March” had been inaugurated with full pomp. Sid Waters, as president, was sitting in the go-cart, his head ornamented with a huge smothering three-cornered hat, made out of a New York daily. Rick Grimes, as governor, was walking behind the go-cart, now and then giving the “chariot” an obsequious push, but impatiently awaiting his turn for a ride. Billy Grimes and Pip Peckham were serving as horses, and soldiers also, pulling along the president and sharing the broom-handle between them. Whether that handle might be a “musket” or a “spear,” no one could say. Charlie served as a body-guard, now looking at Aunt Stanshy’s window and then glancing in pride at grandsir’s sword. Juggie was a color-bearer, and at the same time a color-guard of one appeared in the shape of Tony, flourishing Aunt Stanshy’s clothes-stick. The colors were a very small American flag on a very long bean-pole. Twenty feet ahead of the whole procession, in solitary glory, walked Wort. He was a kind of “chief marshal,” Sid had said, but Wort could not forget that he had also been made “keeper of the great seal” that very day, and in token of it he took along the borrowed curtain-stick.
“Halt!”
This summons came not from the chief marshal but the president, and was promptly obeyed by all. Wort retreated from his advanced position and assumed command. “The grand review will now begin,” he shouted. “The whole of you may get into line. Now forward! For—ward!”
“Say wheel, first!” called out Sid, not intending Aunt Stanshy or any other spectator should hear the advice be thought it necessary to give the chief marshal.
“Wheel first!” shouted Wort, but the only “wheel” that started was one on the go-cart, which concluded to leave its axle, much to the disgust of the president and the confusion of the company. Sid sprang from the cart. “Here, let me do it, Wort.”
“Form in line!” Wort shouted majestically.
“Form in line!” Sid was whispering to several old veterans. “Where’s Juggie?”
“Here, cap’n.”
“Keep your bugle handy and sound it when Wort says, ‘Charge!’”
Juggie proudly brandished a fish-horn which he had borrowed of Simes Badger.
“Shoulder arms!” screamed Wort.
“Ground arms!”
“Ow, my teeth!” squeaked Pip, whose foot had been vigorously rammed by Billy Grimes.
“Order arms! Present arms! March! Charge!”
These directions followed one another so rapidly that only the oldest veterans, and they wildly, could attempt obedience.
“Blow your bugle!” shouted Sid to Juggie.
“Charge! Cavalry, forward!” Wort was shrieking.
It was a wild melee. The cavalry (go-cart) was shoved forward by Gov. Grimes, running it against Pip and Billy, while the “infantry” rushed ahead, each on his own hook, the color-bearer and the color-guard trying to get into place somewhere. Wort vainly endeavored to keep at the head of something or somebody. All this time Juggie was swelling his cheeks and sounding his horn, and this was the only thing that was successfully done. Fortunately the ground to be charged across was not a long stretch, and in a moment they were all shoving against the fence.
“Wort, you didn’t do that right,” claimed the president.
“Yes, I did.”
“No, you’re wrong,” asserted Sid.
“Let me try?” asked Rick.
“No, this will do,” said Sid. “You may march us, Rick.”
This compromise was accepted. Away they all went, Rick strutting forward with great dignity, but Juggie waved his flag cautiously, for the flourishing of such a long pole might lead to his capsizing. Tony followed Juggie. Billy and Pip still tugged at the go-cart that the president continued to monopolize. Charlie solemnly guarded the precious freight in the “chariot.” Wort, who had been at the head of the column, had now wandered to the rear, and his face wore a puzzled look, as if he did not know where to put the chief marshal.
“You ought to have two policemen in front,” squeaked a little voice from the sidewalk. It was Tommy Keys, a small boy, who had seen a procession in Boston, and thought he knew how such things ought to be managed.
“Shet up,” shouted the governor, indignant at even the faintest suggestion of weakness, and he rushed upon Tommy with a drawn clothes-stick. Away went the terrified Tommy.
“So may all our foes be routed!” said the president, and to this sentiment there was a response of three cheers. Alas, how soon all that pride was to be humiliated! The column was now nearing the head of the lane which ran into Water Street, the leading business avenue of the town. Sid, who always had an eye out to the course that was prudent, was exclaiming, in low tones, “Don’t—don’t go too near Water Street! Look out for down-townies, fellers!” It is often the case in a village of any size that there will be among the boys two parties representing two different sections and supposed to represent two different ideas and civilizations. Seamont had its boy-clans, those at the lower end of the village being the down-townies, and those at the upper end were designated as up-townies. The club belonged to the up-townies, “the only fit class for gentlemen,” Sid had declared The down-townies delighted to hurl all kinds of epithets at the other boys, and these “gentlemen” up-townies could sling titles almost as successfully, and both sides would sometimes give additional flavor to their epithets by means of missiles, even as mothers sometimes season their injunctions to boys with a twig from the old apple-tree in the yard. The club had had no hand in these intestine feuds, but sympathized with the warriors in their neighborhood, the up-townies. There had been war recently between the two hostile sections, so that the boys did not venture far from their homes, and what did our valiant column now run into but a band of six belligerent down-townies! The club, at Sid’s suggestion, had already passed a vote to give no quarter to down-townies, and that in case of trouble it should be “war to the last drop!” They prudently did not say what that drop might be, blood or only perspiration. Here was a grand test-hour close at hand. One of the down-townies raised a provoking cry, “Ho, fellers; see those little ragamuffins!”
He pointed toward the column, whose advance Juggie was enthusiastically stimulating by loud and prolonged blasts on the fish-horn.
“Boys, let’s go for ’em,” said one of the down-townies. Raising the war-whoop of the down-townies, which was a savage, senseless yell, and lacking the fine martial tones of the up-townies’ battle-cry, the enemy made their charge. Sid Waters stepped, or leaped rather, from the “chariot” and ran toward the barn. Away went the “colors” in the hands of Juggie, almost capsizing him, as the tall standard swayed violently. Away went Wort, and away went Tony. Away rattled the go-cart, Billy and Pip making excellent time as they dragged it along. An engine rushing to a fire could not have gone much faster.
“Don’t run!” shouted Gov. Grimes. “Stand your ground, my men! Rally!”
“No, sir,” said Charlie, replying to the first appeal, and then, in response to the second, said, quickly, “Yes, sir.”
Charlie was the only one among “my men” willing to “rally.” But the governor was not discouraged. He was resolute, even at times to stubbornness.
He waved his clothes-stick and shrieked, “Come on! I defy you!”
Charlie also looked defiant; but he was so intent on facing the enemy that he did not pay proper attention to his armor, and the sword that had been so loyal to grandsir now turned into a rebel to Charlie. It did what swords will sometimes do; it insisted on mixing up with his chubby legs as he changed his position, and over he went! Rick had grappled the enemy, but it was a hopeless struggle, and things looked ominous for that fragment of the club now in the battle.
Suddenly a sharp, penetrating, commanding voice was heard. “Don’t you touch ’em, you rascals,” and a tall, resolute figure rose above the prostrate Charlie, flourishing a broom. It was Aunt Stanshy, who, from her window, had watched the boys, and, seeing the approach of that down-town thunder-cloud, rushed out to meet the storm. Her prowess was witnessed by Simes Badger, who, as a leading village gossip, was loafing away an hour of leisure in a flag-bottomed chair before Silas Trefethen’s grocery. He told the story to all the village gossips of the masculine sex who gathered at the grocery as soon as they had swallowed their tea and had done as few chores at home as possible.
“Well!” said Simes, laughing.
He was a gaunt, long-drawn-out man, owning a straggling, gray beard, a pair of brown, twinkling eyes, and a nasal voice.
“I saw something, to-day, that beat the Dutch. It was Aunt Stanshy, and she did beat the Dutch; yes, she did, yaw, yaw, yaw! You see a parcel of young ones went up the lane in fine feather, colors flying and drums beat-in’.” (This, to mildly put it, was a misstatement, as not a drum was there to be beaten; but Simes had a weakness for “misstatements.”) “Well, they neared Water Street, and just then the enemy appeared, a lot of down-townies, yaw, yawl My, didn’t those sojers scatter, all but two! I expected them two would be cut up like meat in a sausage-machine, but, turnin’ to look down the lane, I saw a sight! It was Stanshy! She had left the house, broom in hand, and rushed up to the battle-ground, and there she stood among them down-townie chaps, and she fetched that broom backward an forward in grand style, as if sweepin’ out of the way a lot of dirt!”
Here Simes, who always fancied that he was gifted with dramatic powers unusually fine, pulled a broom out of the stock in a neighboring barrel, and began to sway it backward and forward.
“My! didn’t Stanshy sweep the battle-field? The enemy went down like leaves before a November gale!”
Simes, who was bound to act out the narrative, gave an unlucky sweep with his broom above the heads of his grinning and gaping auditors, and whacked Silas Trefethen, who was behind the counter putting up codfish.
“Mind, Simes, there! What are you up to, man?” shouted Silas, tartly, trying to make a stand against the staggering blow dealt amid the laughter of Simes’s auditors.
“O, O! ’Scuse me, Silas! I was only ’lustratin’.”
“’Lustrate next time on that post behind you. If Stanshy Macomber had such rigor in her arm as that, I pity those down-townies!”
Was not Aunt Stanshy indignant when she heard how Simes Badger had taken her off at the store! “I’ll try my broom on him next time,” she told Juggie’s granny.
Aunt Stanshy was very popular with the club, who passed a vote of thanks to their honorary member. The down-townies, though, christened her “the dragon of the lane,” and did not venture near her. Knowing that this fear existed, Sid Waters and other members of the club, especially the runaways, now ventured several times as far as Water Street, shouting defiance to imaginary enemies behind corners and trees. Sid was exceedingly daring with his tongue. It was noticed that he never again rode on such occasions. He evidently wished to have his legs handy, as he could rely on these better than the go-cart.