He cast off the past with his worn-out garments, married a beautiful girl, and started with her, hand in hand, along the paths of peace.
Two months later, on the Fourth of July, he dragged the only cannon Tickfall possessed to the top of the hill in front of his house, invited every white child and every negro piccaninny to his home to witness the celebration, and with his own hands fired one shot from the cannon for every year of independence in the United States of America.
As the years passed, the Gaitskill Fourth of July celebration grew and developed and became a social institution, until finally, when wealth flowed in upon Gaitskill in a golden stream, he made it a practice to entertain the whole population of the village on that night.
The fiftieth celebration was now in progress.
On Gaitskill’s spacious lawn in front of his house, all the white people, men, women, and children, had assembled; in a large horse-lot by the side of the house, all the negroes had congregated; across the street in a large pasture was an immense accumulation of fire-works.
Fifty years had performed gracious offices for Tom Gaitskill and his wife. The beauty and nobility of honorable old age was theirs, as they stood beside the white colonial columns of their home and welcomed their guests, white and black. The two presented a picture which a man sees once in a lifetime—then remembers it forever more.
Suddenly “Old Sneezer,” the venerable Tickfall cannon, boomed!
“Come on, Skeeter!” Hitch Diamond growled. “We better go over in de pasture an’ he’p de white folks shoot off de works!”
“Hitch,” Skeeter answered pitifully, “I feels powerful sick. It ’pears like I cain’t git dat steamboat offen my mind. You an’ Vinegar an’ Figger go over an’ he’p de white folks an’ let me set an’ ponder a while.”
“All right!” Hitch growled. “But ef Marse Tom ketches you cuttin’ out wuck, he’ll kick you all over dis hoss-lot!”