The band, that all day long plays but the one tune, hour after hour, was gathered together by noon, sleek and not yet heated, their trumpets shining in the sun, their fiddles glossy as their well-oiled hair, their big drum round as the portly figure of the bandmaster himself. Already, in many a bedchamber, young women had twirled this way and that before the mirror, studying the set of taffetas and tarletan, or young men had polished their high beavers anxiously against the sleeves of their brightest broadcloth frock coats. In speckless kitchens housewives prepared their cakes and cream, and the masters saw to the drawing of the cider, and, perhaps, tasted it, to make sure that it had not soured overnight. And in each heart different words were running to the Flora Day tune, words that suited with each heart's measure. The children in the streets sang aloud the doggerel words that long custom has fastened upon the tune:—
"John the beau was walking home,
When he met with Sally Dover,
He kissed her once, he kissed her twice,
And he kissed her three times over!"
Thus the heedless children with their lips, but their little hearts probably beat to the even simpler words: "I'm having a holiday! Having a holiday!"
More staidly, and almost unheard by their time-muffled ears, a voice, nevertheless, sang to the housewives, telling each her copper and silver was the brightest in the town, and adding, perhaps, little gusts of memory that half hurt, half pleased, of how nimbly she had danced at the Flora in years gone by, and how fair she had looked....
The staid married men smiled to themselves, and would not have acknowledged that within them something seemed to chuckle: "I'm not so old, after all; I'm not so old, after all...."
Frankly, the hearts of the young men nudged hopefully against their ribs, calling out: "I'm going to dance with Her! I'm going to dance with Her! And perhaps ... for I always was lucky! I always was lucky!"
But who shall say what lilting voice, timid-bold and sly-sincere, whispered to the maidens, beating out its syllables against the new stays so tightly laced for the occasion? Perhaps the words of the children's doggerel, with a name or so altered, met the moment without need of further change....