The Liberty Girl

by Rena I. Halsey

“So we made a thoroughfare for Freedom and her train,
Sixty miles in latitude—three hundred to the main;”

and the inspiration that always comes to every Northern heart when they think of that gallant Son of Liberty, Sherman, and his triumphant march to the sea, that had created the sudden tumult.

The few men in regimentals of the Union army,—in real life, boys in brown from Camp Mills,—who were playing fifes and bugles on the float, and the straggling darkies in the rear, who were shouting with verve and gusto, as they followed in the wake of “Massa Sherman,” intensified the appeal.

Ah, but now comes another edition of Liberty; this time no less a personage than Lillie Bell, who, in the old costume worn over a year ago on the lawn of the big gray house, was standing on a chariot, an old farm wagon ablaze with the colors of Freedom, driven by four soldiers, representing France, England, Belgium, and America. The young goddess with sad and tragic eyes shining from beneath her helmet, gazed straight before her as she held a drawn sword clasped closely to her breast, in a graceful pose beneath the colors of the Allies floating gayly above her head.

Yes, there was no doubt, as Helen had often said, Lillie was born for stellar rôles, for somehow she had the happy faculty of always falling into the desired attitude and mood of the part she was to portray. A sudden silence gripped the line of people standing on the curb, as they saw this familiar figure of Liberty, in a new and strange rôle. On a beflagged chair of state good old Uncle Sam was seated, driving America’s symbol of Freedom with reins of roses. Yes, roses to typify that the good protector of the United States’ joys and interests was on the job,—as the Sport expressed it,—but doing it with the silken reins of love.

In the rear of this float a very small one appeared, but it was large enough to display a cannon and a pile of cannon-balls, and also a member of the United States Marines’ crack quartet of machine-gunners. As he was the genuine article, as one of the girls declared,—being one of the town’s boys home on a leave of absence, and held a Lewis gun, he was received with wild cheers. A Jackie was perched on what was supposed to be a conning-tower, apparently on the watch for a submarine, while another soldier of the seas was ramming an old cannon, which created much laughter.

It wasn’t much of a naval display, Nathalie thought regretfully, but it was the best they could do with their poor equipment, for these Daughters of Freedom were resolved to give due honor to these brave guardians of the sea.

A contingent of husky young chaps from Camp Mills were lionized as soon as their khaki-clad figures were sighted on the next float, which was marked, “Liberty Boys.” A somewhat crude representation of a trench, piled with sand-bags, with a few boys in tin hats, with guns in their hands, clambering over it, represented to the spectators an “Over the Top” scene. In the rear of the trench a few soldiers were grouped around a camp-fire, presumably in a rest billet, having “eats.” Every moment or so a soldier on this float would break forth into some war-song, which was quickly taken up by his comrades, and which helped to make the scene very realistic.

A small float with the Red Cross insignia, bearing the words, “The Cross of Liberty,” with a few nurses seated around a table making bandages, now appeared. A white cot, with a soldier boy in it, suddenly silenced the cheers,—it was so suggestive of what every heart held in silent dread and fear, ever since the United States had buckled to the fray.

But the sudden quiet was broken as the next, and last, float hove in sight. It was so artistically gotten up as a Liberty Garden, and represented so much freshness and beauty with its Liberty Girls, each one dressed to represent either a fruit or a vegetable, that it was wildly cheered. Masses of fruit piled up here and there peeped from bowers of green leaves, or hung in festoons across the float. Potatoes, green and red peppers, onions, cucumbers, and many other products of the garden were lavishly in evidence. Carol, the Tike, was arrayed as a pumpkin, a row of yellow leaves standing above a bunch of green ones. Carrots, cucumbers, turnips, even beans, beets, and strawberries were ingeniously represented by crêpe paper.