The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1881-08-18

7,s.-.-.
Tho Fourth Of July Of Our Boyhood.
ii NE deadsJi hights me 6fst Fourth
kef JUL soeed,yhiessxa lard ia our
villa w&4 On! choaS house bell:
Geuc 1kio& Ut& Qnn6iatio4pf beilD had
rung that bell directly after the town
clock had struck the midnight hour.
To stay out all night and help ring that
bell was for us one of the great enjoy
/ ments of the anniversary. When very
young, as lay in bed and heard this
glorious sound, every tinkle seemed a
note of pure gold. A few years later,
on growing up to youths estate, ar
rived at the honor Of helping to ring it
| myself. Sometimes unpatriotic and
churlish school trustees denied US this
luxury. That made no difference. We
found ladders, scaled the building and
captured the belfry. Such risk, law.
lessness and excitement only added to
tie pleasure. One thing was certain,
that old bell had to be rung ut the earli-
est moment of Independence Day, and
ring it always did. Besides this, we
broke out with guns. pistols. hand-bells,
tin-kettles, horns, drums and q minia-
ture cannon which some mischievous
sailors had robbed from Sandwich
Island fort and brought home in one Of
our whale. ships. All the old folks who
wanted to sleep, and who. twenty FIVE
or thirty years before, had been just so
blowing, ringing, beating and banging
at the same hour, turned over in their
beds and grumbled and growled at old
John Adams, who had particularly rec
commended the ringing of bells and
firing Of guns on Fourth of July morn
ings. They did not always know that
their own sons were making that noise.
We had such exciting times getting out
ofti1e hUuse after father and mother
had redrcd. We tip toed down the
back stairs, shoes and stockings in
hand. How,some Of those steps would
c-r-e-a-k! They never creaked so in
the daytime. They seemed to whine
out like a miserable telltaie at school;
SANS -g-i-t-t-i-n--o.u-t--
h-o.u-s.er Then we had to stop and
stand still long time. Then we would
tread clear over that step and down two
or three more. They were nice, quiet
steps They wouldn't tell. Then we
came to another traitor. C-r-e-a-kr'
And when we slowly and cautiously
opened the back door its miserable
hinges also did their best to alarm the
family. ''Sam's-a-g-i-t-t-i-n-O-u-t OF the
house, tell ,ye!'' Bad. as these
scares were no one ever woke up.
When fairly outside and we felt the
cool midnight air on our brows, our
limbs, full of vigor. flew down the
street to the appointed rendezvous,
there to meet the gradually accumu-
lating band. who had all effected SINH
lar escapes by doors or windows. and
all equipped with respectable dinner
bells captured from hall tables to be
impressed for, the time being into this
disorderly and turbulent service.
Sunrise found us waiting eagerly for
breakfast, very tired, with heavy eye
lids, but still resolved to celebrate
though we died, or more likely slept, at
our posts. The mornings meal over
and the, serious business of the day
commenced. The savings Of the past
six weeks now commenced going. Dea-
con Pitts had street stand Ornaniented
with green pine-tree boughs on one
corner; on the other was the cake and
confectionery shop of Aunt Kitty Conk-
lin. We traded steadily from one to
the other. We bought cup-custards,
then cakes. then candies, then ice
cream, then some more custard, then
spruce beer, then sandwiched fire.
cracker between every course. If a
boys stomach has any consciousness
of its own, its must regard the Fourth
of July with gloomy forebodings.' Our
Fourth of July was grandest and bright
est between ten and twelve o'clock in
the morning while the procession was
forming and marching through the
streets on its way to the church. Tho
arrival of the country farmers accom-
panied by their wives and daughters in
their old, implanted, springless wagons.
brilliant fragment of the coming
pageant, asoldier of the village mill
tary company in the whitest of trousers,
red worsted epaulettes and a high.
shiny hat with little red plume stuck
in it, or a red-shirted fireman, or the
great silken temperance banner, or,
perhaps. even a general in chapeau
and plumes-all these attended with the
firing of cannon, the ringing of bells,
the popping of crackers and the eating
of more custard aud candy. and the
drinking of more spruce beer, was one
steady, blissful ascent upward. When
the procession terminated in the rear
by citizens on foot, who looked very
plain and Insignificant compared to the
brilliant uniforms in front 1--WE did
wish father would be something else
besides citizen on foot in the rear on
| the Fourth of JULY had twisted itself
around the village few times it disap.
peared in the church, and we, having
greedily followed it TO the door. re.
turned to our tire-crackers, custards,
creams and beer. It was even then
that the first declining sh AIDES of the
great anniversary had commenced to
| appear and the fresher sparkle of the
earlier day togrow dim. For the Grafton
from that young lawyer (who. because
he was a lawyer, was considered the
only proper man to deliver the Grafton
and go to Congress), and the ode from
the pen of the village poetess, and the
reading of the Declaration of Indepen.
dence, all this was dull and tedious tc
us boys.
Somehow the procession from the
church never quite equaled that to it.
Something was lacking. The first gloss
was gone. As the day waned it broke
up and its glittering fragments were
scattered about on the street-a soldier
here, a fireman there, and even the
General was on foot and talking to com
mon folks. The inner had been fin.
ished, save by few intensely patriotic
spirits, who were fighting and falling
in contest with a tyrant far more
powerful than old King George. The
country families had commenced set,
Ting down into those straight-backed,
straw bottomed chairs in the farm wag.
on. while the Deacon on the front seat
whipped up the sleepy horses and start.
ed for the rural homestead, his clash
CAD" stiff and straight against his
shoulder like a soldiers musket on pa
rade. The crackers now popped more
feebly and at longer intervals. "Ce,e-
| bratiOn money" was getting low. A