For the Southern Literary Messenger.
THE VILLAGE ON FOURTH JULY 183—.
A TALE.
Ergo agite, et lætum cuncti celebremus honorem.—Virgil.
Risum teneatis amici?—Horace.
I do not know that the celebration of a Fourth of July in a country village has ever been thought worthy of appearing in print; nor do I know that a tale, founded on such a celebration, has ever been written; and I doubt whether the fancy of any of our geniuses has ever pictured such a subject, either with the pen or pencil. Many of your readers will perhaps be amazed at the thought of such a subject for a tale; but permit me to ask, why not a tale of the Fourth of July as well as any other? Is it because the hearts of a free people, rejoicing on the anniversary of the day which gave them liberty, throb in harmony, and therefore can afford neither novelty nor variety? Granted. But are there not various modes of manifesting, more or less appropriately, the inward emotions of our hearts? Are not our ideas dissimilar as to the manner of exhibiting our feelings, according to our various means, situations and vocations in life—high or low—in cities, towns and country? Then wherefore not? We have read of tales of wo, and tales of bliss, and tales of neither; and, this being the case, I am imboldened to this undertaking, leaving to the better judgment of the reader to assign it to whichever class it properly belongs.
At the foot of a slope, and on the right of a stream compressed between two abrupt and craggy hills, covered with oaks and pines, stands a small village, remarkable only for the rude and romantic scenery which surrounds it. Access to it from the left side of the stream can only be gained by a rocky, rugged and declivous road, the greater part of which seems to have been either blasted or hewed out of the side of a hill, around which it winds at a considerable height above the water—and, at its termination is a neat frame bridge, which when crossed admits you into the village. This stream bounds a conterminous portion of two counties bordering upon the Potomac, into which it empties itself at about five miles below the village, where the influx and reflux of the tides are felt. Although there is considerable depth of water at the village sufficient to float vessels of a large size, yet the clayey alluvion brought down by the stream, and reacted upon by the river at their junction, becomes a deposite which forms a kind of bar, over which none but small crafts can pass. The number of inhabitants may be estimated at from two to three hundred, the greater part of whom are attached to a cotton factory but recently erected, and the remainder, with the exception of a few families of consideration, are more or less connected with the country and merchant mills, established many years since, from which the village has its origin and perhaps its name.
The beating of a drum, and the shrill and false tones of a fife, at dawn of day, betokened to the villagers who still reposed upon their pillows, that the glorious birthday of independence was likely not to be passed unobserved, as hitherto it had been. This novel, and, in effect, startling ushering of the day, soon brought them upon their feet, and ere the sun had peered over the eastern, or crested the brows of the western, mounts, the streets, such as they are, had become quite enlivened. Most of the villagers had never heard the sounds of martial music, and the greater number of those who had, were indebted to the troops that had passed through the village during the late war. Those who had never seen nor heard the sounds of a drum and fife, disclosed their amazement by their gazing eyes and mouths agape. To a looker on, the performers could not but be remarkable. A European, tall, erect, lank, and already tippled, thumped away upon a drum, the vellum of the nether end of which was rent,—followed by a stout, awry necked, crumped backed and limping African, as fifer—a contrast at once striking and ludicrous, hobbled along, most earnestly occupied with their reveille, heedless of the gaze of the wonderstruck multitude—the din of their music echoing and reverberating from the surrounding hills. The drummer had been such in the United States Marines, and had but recently quitted the service—and though not sober, his performance was far from being bad. The fifer had served in that capacity during the revolutionary war. His finger, stiff from long disuse of the instrument, which he had preserved with religious care since that epoch, did not allow him to give but an imperfect specimen of his store of marches and quicksteps in vogue at that time, and his recollection of them was scarcely better; the tunes of the present times he knew nothing about. The drum used upon this occasion had been put hors de combat during the late war, as the troops passed through the village. This, together with the hallowed fife and veteran fifer, in connection with the day, did not fail to give rise to associations eminently calculated to excite enthusiasm.
It appears that the celebration of the day had originated with, and was suggested by, an honest son and follower of St. Crispin, (who had lived in a city and had acquired some knowledge of l'art militaire,) whose ambition to command a corps had led him to the most indefatigable exertion to inspire the villagers with the spirit of amor patriæ, and success having crowned his exertion, application had been made for commissions as well as for arms, in order to organize themselves in time for a parade on the approaching festival. In this however they were disappointed; for they had obtained neither when the day arrived, and having determined to celebrate it, in spite of their disappointment they would.
This resolution soon circulated through the adjacent country called the forest—its inhabitants foresters, who, anxious to witness the parade—"the spree," as they termed it, came flocking into the village on foot and horseback, singly and doubly, et cetera, by every byroad and pathway which led to and terminated there. By meridian the gathering was so great that the oldest inhabitants declared that such an influx was not within their recollection. As regards the character of the foresters, men and women, they are an honest, hardy, industrious and independent people, and on Sundays, high-days and holydays, cut a very respectable figure in the way of apparel and ornaments—and for this occasion particularly, no pains had been spared to make an eclat.