The Magnolia gazette. [volume] (Magnolia, Miss.) 1872-current, 1899-07-08
GRAY CON.

tinent, but it is a part Of Pike
county, where country school
and a Sabbath school both are
kept up. The writer was almost
compelled TO resort to this quiet
place on the 4th, and expected
just TO find the common place
civilities of a country place, with
that invariable adiunct--a good
dinner, but Of long tables, groan-
ing with sumptuous feast, and
all that kind Of thing, this writer
leaves to writer's who have moth.
ing better to put in.
Gray Coat lies out west some
four miles from Osyka, and is
but a modest school house, that
stands upon a Hill where the free
winds sweep over field and bow
er, and the zephyrs sing in mon
otones along with the strains Of
the woodland choristers, while in
the valley below the sweet brook
let Of Gray Coat
"There chattors over stony ways
In little sharps and trebles,
And bubbles into eddying bays
And babbles on the pebbles
First we had an address Of
welcome by Rcv. ID. O. Roberts.
Response by MIR. Wilson, Of
Osyka. National prayer by 7,
f.. Tate.
Then came the great feature
the recitations. These formed
tho crowning glory Of the scene.
The writer expected to see appear
some nice school girls well dress
ed, with written recitations, very
beautifully adorned by pendant
fringes, recited in rapid man
ner. with pendant arms, and now
and then n gesture in just too
late to suit the sentiment uttered,
and possibly filled with military
laudation5 Of some prominent
event connected with the war Of
the sixties, bat there was no Sec
tional praise put forth. 1t was a
national day and every recitation
that breathed anything Of the
glory won in deadly fray, was
patriotic, uplifting the honor OF
the whole united country. The
girls had no written essays in
their hands, and they seemed to
throw all the enthusiasm Of their
souls, largely vitalized by living
sentiment and correct gesticula-
ton into their addresses, until
the hearer declined to think that
he was listening TO mere recita-
tive poems, and felt as though
the declamations were wholly
original. The writer has listened
TO a great many recitations in
life, and in neither town nor
country, outside Of theatrical de-
liveries, has he ever heard any
thing that surpassed the recita-
tions OF the Gray Coat girls on
the 4th inst.
1t would be invidious for this
writer to give any undue prefer
ence TO the performers, but the
recitation, "OuP country's Flag"
was as grand a thing as he ever
listened to. The writer would
certainly delight in bringing for
ward three recitations delivered
by three Gray Coat girls:
1st. "The Mountaineer Of
West Virginia" who, when pur-
sued by Indians, leaped from the
summit Of rock down into the
blue Kanawa, and was met and
saved there by his brave wife in
a skiff.
2nd. "The Three Brothers
Who Fell Together on the Same
Battle Field. =
3. "The Flag Of Our Country
by a young lady who, grasping a
flag that hung on the stage,
waved it on high, as our coun-
py's emblem, the "Banner OF
Nhe Free" telling how it had
waved on high amid Revolution
airy fields-at Bunker's Hill, al
Monmouth, at Saratoga, where
Burgoyne went down before it,
at Yorktown, where Cornwallis
pulled down the Lion Banner oi
England before it,, then how
! Dewey bore its crested stars tc
victory away on towards the
gateway of the day, where thu
blue waves roll round q hundred
isles and opened up among bar
baric people the doorways Of civ