The Brookhaven ledger. (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1875-1883, 1876-08-03

ancestors, one hundred years ago,
didn't care q continental red whether
their King signed their magma charta
or not; they signed it for themselves and
their posterity with own good r'gn.
hands. Tremendous applause, ana
cries of Bully for Bodkins. y
Consider, say, the grandeur OF the
event, as one by one those immortal
men take up the diamond>pointed gold
pen and sign the Declaration OF indie
pendence.
"Diamond-pointed gold pens hadn't
come into use at that time" said the
schoolmaster, "nor steel pens either,
for that matter"
us that SOP" said Bodkins. "What
the thunder'd they write with then?'
"Goose quilsl" answered the school
master sententiously.
As, ono by one they grasped the
gray goose quill and affixed their names
to the. immortal document. just one
hundred years ago. this mighty nstion
sprang into being with al elastic bound
Just as the goddess Minerva, in her
birth, leaped from the brain of Jupi-
ter, full grown, and armed and equip
ped rs the law directs. Vociferous ap-
plause, in which the red,haired youth
knocks the handle and neck off of the
brown Jug. Sensation.
The deed is done! The big-monthed
cannon announces the fact to land and
sea; the sweet -tongued church bells
ring the glad tidings to the listening air;
and the winged lightnings of heaven,
swifter than Mercury, the mai!-boy of
the gods, bear the glorious news on the
trembling wires of telegraph, over oil
Columbia's land, A voice, Hold on
there, Bodkius!'l from New York to
San Francisco, from Chicago to New
Orleans
"The telegraph hadn't been invented
then, said one of the gray-beards.
"Aud San Francisco and New Orleans
we're Spanish towns" said the school
master.
"And Chicago" said Brister, twas
where you are getting, Bodkins-in the
woods"
"Thats SO" said Bodkins. "Just
bear with me, gentlemen. till wind up
the tangle thread of my Grafton rs gen.
tly as possible, and I'll come toa close. :"
["Hurrah, Bodkins!" "Go on, Bod
kins!'
Angels that's the idea I meant to
convey; hang Your new tangled tele-
graph, anyhow-angels whisper the glo-
rious news to waiting hearts through all
Columbia's land, and the ferce-eyed
eagle screams it as on iron pinions borne
ne bursts through the black thunder
cloud:-A nationiborn, great nation, a
mighty nation, a nation of near fifty
of people, spreading from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, and strengthing
from the coral reefs of Florida to the
rocks of Alaska-clad in mail of eternal
ice.
"You confound two historic periods,
Mr.. Bodkins,' remarked the school
master, "the nation, or, as should say
the Union of to day and the Confedera-
tion of one hundred years ago"
It was the nation of to-day that
was born one hundred years ago
When 1 say George Washington was
born on the 22nd of February, 1892, do
1 mean the diminutive infant with just
vitality enough to kick and cry, and
with nothing to distinguish it from a
million other children of the same sex
and age? N-e-v-e-r-L! 1 mean the
great and magnanimous Washington of
history-the Washington whose gleam-
ing sword plucked from Briton's King
the brightest gem in his crown.
[Cheers. So when speak,,of the nation
that was born, mean the nation that
fills 80 bright page in the worlds his
tory. My exuberant fancy blends in
one the nation of 1776 and the nation of
1876. What is there between them?
Only hundred years? And what's, q
hundred years in the life of great ma
ton? Orly little grain of sand in the
huge hour glass of Time!
Bodkins took his seat amid storms of
applause, and as the whisky in the bro
ken jug needed speedy attention to pre-
ven evaporation and decomposition. the
further consideration of the subject was
postponed to July 4th, 1876.
From the Columbus Democrat.