The Temperance Societies attracted especial attention. They included gray-haired men, boys, mothers and daughters, and numerous reformed drunkards. Their banners were inspiring. The Bakers’ Temperance Benevolent Society carried a banner showing on one side all the horrors of intemperance, “the lightning destroying the false light that has already enticed the ship of the Inebriate to his destruction; the moderate drinker coming on under easy sail, just entering the sea of trouble; the first glass making its appearance on the horizon; a figure representing beastly intoxication, another just throwing off the shackles of intemperance; the Anchor of Hope firmly planted in the Rock of Safety with the pledge of total abstinence for its cable extending across the abyss of destruction and winding through the land. On the other side, the Genius of Temperance offered the Staff of Life and the Cup of Health; the Temple of Science and Wisdom divided the picture with Peace, Commerce, Mechanics, and Agriculture flanking. A smaller banner showed the interior of a Bake House with the Temperate Bakers cheerfully performing their work.”
Other banners were even more comprehensive.
The procession moved along with the usual open and shut effect. There would come an abrupt halt with everybody in a jumble. Then a quick start-off and a lengthening gap that must be closed on the run. It was annoying, wearisome, and soon began to seem foolish. Why should one half of the town wear its feet off marching past the other half of the town whose feet were asleep with the long sitting still?
By a stroke of luck, the Fire Kings made a long pause near the residence on Broadway where Patty and her two families, old and young, had been invited to watch the parade. RoBards was as confused as a silly child when his son Keith recognized him and advertised him with loud yells of “Papa!” He and Immy then came bolting to the curb, followed by Patty.
People stared and made comments on the amazing thing that a man’s wife should violate decorum with such public friendliness. It was as bad manners as greeting a friend cordially on a Sunday.
Patty edged close to her husband and said—as if she knew it would help him on his journey:
“Did you see how fat Harry Chalender is getting? He looked like an idiot sitting up there while a man of your ability walks. It’s simply disgusting!”
Oh, mystic comfort of contempt—the lean man’s for the fat; the fat man’s for the lean; the failure’s for the conqueror! By the alchemy of sympathy, RoBards’ anger was dissipated by finding its duplicate in his wife’s heart. He smiled at her earnestness in a matter that had but lately driven him frantic. It is thus that men prove women excitable.
Then the bands ahead and abaft struck up at the same time but not with the same tune and he had to move on, his mind and his feet trying in vain to adapt themselves to both rackets.
It was two o’clock before the advanced guard of Washington Grays galloped up in front of the City Hall. It was half past four when the last man had passed in review, and Samuel Stevens, Esq., president of the Board of Water Commissioners, began his address.