TOM’S CENTENNIAL.
A FOURTH OF JULY STORY.
BY MARGARET EYTINGE.
“HURRAH! To-morrow’s the Fourth of July—the glorious Fourth!” shouted Tom Wallace, careering wildly around the flower garden, as a Roman candle he held in his hand, evidently unable to contain itself until the proper time, went off with a fizz and a pop and flashed against the evening sky, “and it’s going to be the greatest Fourth that ever was known, because it’s the Centennial!”
“A cent-tennial!” said his little sister Caddy, “that won’t be anything great.”
“Pooh! you don’t understand—girls never do—Centennial don’t mean anything about money. Centennial means ’pertaining to, or happening every hundred years’—if you don’t believe me ask Noah Webster—and just a hundred years ago this magnificent Republic of America, gentlemen of the jury,” he continued, mounting a garden-chair, and making the most absurd gestures, “was declared free and independent, and its brave citizens determined not to drink tea unless they chose to, and our cousins from the other side of the Atlantic went marching home to the tune the old cow died on.”
“What tune was that?” asked Caddy.
“Gentlemen of the jury,” said Tom, “I’m astonished to find such ignorance in this great and enlightened country. The name of that memorable tune was and still is, as Your Honor well knows, Yankee Doodle;” and the orator, descending from the chair, commenced whistling that famous melody.
“Well, then,” said Caddy, after a moment’s thought, “if a Centinal is something about a hundred years old, Aunt Patience is one, for she’s a hundred years old to-morrow—she told me so—and she feels real bad ’cause she can’t go to the green to see the fire-works, on ’count of the pain in her back, and Faith ain’t got any shoes or hat, and the flour’s ’most gone, and so’s the tea, and she says ‘the poor-house looms.’”
“‘The poor-house looms,’ does it?” said Tom laughing; and then he stuck his hands in his pockets, and hummed “Hail Columbia” in a thoughtful manner.
“I say, Frank,” he called out at last, going up on the porch, and poking his head in at a window, “what are you doing?”
“‘The king was in the parlor, counting out his money,’”
answered Frank.
“How much, king?”
“Twenty—thirty—thirty-five,” said Frank, “one dollar and thirty-five cents. How do you figure?”
“Two, fifteen. Come out here, I want to tell you something.”
Frank, who was two years younger than Tom appeared.
“What’s up?” he asked, throwing himself into the hammock which hung from the roof of the porch, and swinging lazily.
“Would it break your heart, and smash the fellows generally, if we didn’t go to the meeting on the green to-morrow evening, after all the fuss we’ve made about it?”
“What?” asked Frank, in a tone of surprise, assuming a sitting position so suddenly that the hammock—hammocks are treacherous things—gave a sudden lurch, and landed him on the floor.
Tom’s laughter woke all the echoes around.
“Forgive these tears,” he said, as he wiped his eyes, “and now to business. You know not, perhaps, my gentle brother, that we have a centenarian, or as Caddy says, a centinal among us?”
“A centinal?” said Frank, stretching himself out on the floor where he had fallen.
“A centenarian, or centinal, whichever you choose, most noble kinsman, and she lives on the outskirts of this town. Her name—a most admirable one—is Patience. Her granddaughter’s—another admirable one—Faith.
“Patience has the rheumatism. Faith has no shoes. They want to see some fire-works, and hear some Fourth of July—being centinals they naturally would.
“What say you? Shall we and our faithful clan, instead of swelling the ranks of the militia on the green, march to the humble cottage behind the hill, and gladden the hearts of old Patience and young Faith with a pyr-o-tech-nic display?”
“Good!” said Frank, who always followed the lead of his elder brother.
And “Good!” echoed Caddy; “but don’t spend all your money for fire-works. Give some to Aunt Patience, ’cause she’s the only centinal we’ve got.”
“And she’ll never be another,” said Tom,
“‘While the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.’”
So on the evening of the Fourth the people of Tomstown were somewhat astonished to see the young Centennial Guards march down the principal street, pass the green, where extensive preparations for festivities had been made, and keep on up the hill until, beginning to descend on the other side, they were lost to sight.
At the head marched Frank with his drum. Caddy came directly behind him with a bunch of brilliant flowers. The others carried flags, Chinese lanterns, and boxes of fire-works, while Captain Tom flew here and there and everywhere, trying to keep—an almost hopeless task—the mischievous company in something like order.
“Where away?” shouted Uncle Al—an old sailor home for the holiday—as the guards passed his door.
“To Aunt Patience—our own special Centennial,” Frank shouted back with a tremendous roll of the drum.
Uncle Al, always ready for fun, pipe in mouth, fell in line, waving his tarpaulin on the end of a stick, and Ex, his yellow dog, and Ander, his black one, followed after, grinning and wagging their tails.
Then the butcher’s boy, and his chum the baker’s boy, who were going by, turned and joined the procession, and away they all went, hurrahing, laughing and drumming, to the door of the very small cottage.
“Bless my heart!” said Aunt Patience, who was sitting in a wooden arm-chair on the stoop, and who, hearing faintly, poor, dear, deaf old soul, the noise of the approaching “guards,” had been thinking the frogs croaked much louder than usual, “what’s this?”
And bare-footed, brown-eyed Faith came out with wonder written all over her pretty face.
“Three cheers for our special Centennial!” shouted the boys; and they gave three with a will, as Caddy placed her flowers in the old woman’s hand.
“Now for the pyr-o-tech-nic display!” commanded Captain Tom; and for nearly an hour Roman candles fizzed, blue-lights popped, torpedoes cracked, pin-wheels whizzed, and fire-crackers banged.
Old Patience said it was worth living a hundred years to see.
And as the last fire-work went up a rocket and came down a stick, the gallant company formed in single file, and, marching past Aunt Patience, each member bade her “good-night,” and dropped some money in her lap.
As for Uncle Al—that generous, jolly, warm-hearted old sailor, his gift was three old-fashioned silver dollars; one for himself, one for Ex, and one for Ander.
“No one should think,” he said, “that his dogs were mean dogs.”
Then away they all went again, hurrahing, shouting, and drumming like mad!
