Get yer glad rags on,
For there's going to be a meeting
In the good old town.
Every town in America is a good old town, and on such occasions as Decoration Day you may always hear the worthies of the place giving their reminiscences in the lounge of a hotel. I sat and listened to many.
We had a very quiet morning, and it seemed to me there was considerable boredom in the town. There was a fire in the Opera House about eleven, and I ran behind the scenes with a crowd of others and stared at the smoking walls. There was a sort of disappointment that the firemen put it out so promptly.
But after dinner the real holiday commenced, and the houses began to empty and the streets began to fill. About four o'clock the "Parade" commenced, what we should in England call a procession. Every one who owned a car had it out, carrying roses and ferns and flags. There was a continual hooting and coughing of motor-horns, and an increasing buzz of talk. The "Eighth Regimental Band" appeared, and stood with their instruments in the roadway, chatting to passers-by and being admired. The firemen came with new hats on—their work at the Opera House happily concluded. They now bore on their shoulders wreaths, which were to be carried to the graves of the heroes in the cemetery outside the town. The High School band formed up. A tall man brought a new-bought banner of the Stars and Stripes, which hung from a bird-headed pole. Boy Scouts came in costume—as it were in the rags of the war. The marching order was formed, and then came up what I thought to be the Town Militia, but which turned out to be the representatives of the Mechanics Union, with special decorations and medals on their breasts. The bands began to play; the automobiles, full of flowers and flags, began to cough and shoot forward; the flocks of promenaders on the side-walk and in the roadway set themselves to march in step to the festal music. I watched the whole procession, from the Eighth Regimental Band that went first to the eight veterans of the Spanish War, who, with muskets on their shoulders, took up the rear. I stopped several people in the procession and asked them who they were, what exactly was their rôle, for what reason were they decorated with medals,—and every one was glad to satisfy my curiosity. I found that the eight veterans considered themselves technically a squad, and their function was to fire a salute over the graves of the "heroes."
The procession marched round the town to the strains of "Onward, Christian soldiers" and "O come, all ye faithful." All the people of Clearfield accompanied—Americans, Poles, Ruthenians, Slovaks—for Clearfield has its foreign mining population as well as its Anglo-Saxon urban Americans. As I was going alongside, a young boy ran up and put his hand on my shoulder and addressed me in Polish.
"What's that you say?" I asked.
"Vairy good!" said he, and pointed to the procession. "I like it."