The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1894-03-07
Secret Orders.

ders, and unions, and clubs, and rites.
and teams, and things than the two of
them could count in q week. Whv.
the man used to take some of his meals
at home, but he went to bed in repalia.
And from force of habit used to call his
wife Worshipful Mistress and the
children Junior Wardens,' and Chief
Tough Moguls,' and Most Worthy
Bashi Bazouks,' and other wicked and
pagan titles. The mans children grew
to regard the entire system of secret
societies of the United States as their
father. They had vague idea that
they were in some close degree blood
relations of Solomon, and they told
their Sunday-school teacher that their
grandfather worked on the tower of
Babel, and they always spoke of Hiram
Abitf as Uncle Hiram; and this man
used to go down and pound the boiler
and hold one corner of the blanket and
grease the pole and heat the pitch
nights when there was a candidate to
be assassinated; and he also watered
himself into dropsy at Good Tempar
meetings, and fermented himself into
beer vat at Druids' picnics, and ate him
self into chronic indigestion at Odd
Fellows suppers, and sat up at night
with sick Grand Army comrades, and
visited Masonic widows and comforted
Knights of Honor rphans-females
sixteen years and upwards-and danced
himself into paralysis and got his eyes
BACKED at all sorts of balls, and had a
good busy time of it, and was consid-
cred capital fellow because he had to
write S. o. G. F. W., and B. B. o. E.,
and E. o. D., after his name every
time he wrote letter or registered at
hotel.
Well, one day there were several
things going on all at once in our town.
There was grand convocation of
knights Templar and public installa-
ton of Hope Lodge, No. 8,27S, l. o. o.
F., and Druid picnic and Hibernian
Benevolent Society ball, and frater-
nifty symposium and Grand Army pa
rade and camp. fire, and special M.
W. of the S. K. of A. U. w. Legion,
306, and two or three bazars, and a
masked parade of the L. o. M g, and a
bremen's tournament and fight and
choral union rehearsal, and choir
meeting and squabble, and base ball
match and regatta, and croquet quar-
rel, and in an effort to attend all of
them in full regalia the man overdid
himself, came home all tired out, told
his wife he didn't feel very well, and
went straight to bed. His family never
saw the man again for six weeks. And
the days were made busy and the
nights noisy by all manner of commit
tees wearing all manner of badges COM
ing to inquire after the sick man, and to
sit up with him and bringing with them
all manner of comforting things-gruel
and jellies, and water ices, and tarpin
soup, and peanuts and ice cream, and
cake and pie, and watermelon and
tracts and flat TASKS, and new stories,
and sandwiches and egg nog, and
cigars and conundrums, and Jokes on
the boys, and all sorts of doctors and
homeopathists, allopaths, water cures,
Swedish movement cures, eclectics,
new school, old school, regulars,
guerillas, injun doctors, faith doctors,
kneaders, slappers and healers.
And the man got well! He had
to-" the fat man added, noticing the ex-
preston of incredulity that settled upon
the countenances of the passengers;
"there were too many of him to die at
once. While they were wrestling with
one of him the rest of him would get
the bulge on him, so he pulled through.
And when he was quite well and all
there, they had grand union picnic
for his benefit; to which all the So
cieties to which he belonged were in
vited. The family naturally rejoiced at
this, and supposed they would get front
seats all the way, as they were closely
connected with the circus. Instead of
this, however, they were treated to a
surprise. The procession formed with
the man himself and three eminent
brethren of the vastly superior degrees
in the first carriage. Then came a
brass band. Then came more carriages
containing eminent brethren from visit.
ing lodges, every man with enough
initials after his name to stock a rail-
road; the o. l. G. U. r. F. L Y; and
the h. S. L. U. V. X; and the G. U. &
c. A. L. L. u; and the T. o. M. and
the G. A. l.. and j. U. G.. under the
seat. Then came whole procession
of chaplains, lodge chaplains, on foot,
swearing at the dust. And away off,
two and half miles away from the
band, came the family, in the middle of
the street, hoofing it.
"When the family got out to the pic
mic grounds, the members of the mans
domestic household were again pleas
antly surprised, being stopped at the
gate by an outside sentinel, who dubbed
them off to the right. There they found
an inside guard who promptly chased
them off to the left. There they ran
into boy seven years old, with white
hair and red necktie, carrying a clothes
prop, and bearing in his own official
person the enormous and overbearing
title of Royal and Thrice Puissant
Knight of the Mighty Arm and Potent
Keeper of the Way And when they
got away from all that alive, they were
finally shooed away and waved off
down the road and told to get out there
and keep away or they'd get into
trouble, by little old man with bow
legs, hair lip, wart on his nose, a
bald head and green goggles, who the
awestricken intruders after
ward learned was his Most Goodness
Gracious Nibs, the Four or Five Times
Renowned and Most Awfully Magnifi-
cent and Resplendent Fly-un-the. Creek