Each one did their part to wear away the day, and, despite the sad farewells of the morning, really seemed to enjoy the picnic. Smiles and jokes, oranges and bananas were in plenty, while cigars were passed to the gentlemen, oranges to the ladies, and chewing gum to the children. Even the canaries sang their songs from the cages hung to the racks. Thus our first day passed, and evening found us nearing Cleveland—leaving darkness to hide from our view the beautiful city and Lake Erie. We felt more than the usual solemnity of the twilight hour, when told we were going over the same road that was once strewn with flowers for him whom Columbia bowed her head in prayers and tears, such as she never but once uttered or shed before, and brought to mind lines I then had written:
Bloom now most beautiful, ye flowers,
Your loveliness we'll strew
From Washington to Cleveland's soil,
The funeral cortege through.
In that loved land that gave him birth
We lay him down to rest,
'Tis but his mangled form alone,
His soul is with the blest.
Not Cleveland's soil alone is moist