第28章 THE FIREMEN'S TOURNAMENT(3)

But for all the wagon is so full, there is room for a big basket covered with a red-ended towel. (Seems to me I smell fried chicken, don't you?)I just thought I'dt see if you'd bite. You've formed your notions of country people from "The Old Homestead" and these by-gosh-Mirandy novels. The real farmers, nowadays, drive into town in double-seated carriages with matched bays, curried so that you can see to comb your hair in their glossy sides. The single rigs sparkle in the sun, conveying young men and young women of such clean-cut, high-bred features as to make us wonder. And yet I don't know why we should wonder, either. They all come from good old stock. The young fellows run a little too strongly to patent-leather shoes and their horses are almost too skittish for my liking, but the girls are all right. If their clothes set better than you thought they would, why, you must remember that they subscribe for the very same fashion magazines that you do, and there is such a thing as a mail-order business in this country, even if you aren't aware of it.

All the little boys in town are out with their baskets chanting sadly:

PEANUTS? FIVE A BAG

You 'll hear that all day long.

But there isn't much going on before the excursion trains come in.

Then things begin to hop. The grand marshal and his aides gallop through the streets as if they were going for the doctor. The trains of ten and fifteen coaches pile up in the railroad yard, and the yardmaster nearly goes out of his mind. People are so anxious to get out of the cars, in which they have been packed and jammed for hours, that they don't mind a little thing like being run over by a switching engine. Every platform is just one solid chunk of summer hats and babies and red shirts and alto horns.

They have been nearly five hours coming fifty miles. Stopped at every station and sidetracked for all the regular trains. Such a time! Lots of fun, though. The fellows got out and pulled flowers, and seed cucumbers, and things and threw them at folks. You never saw such cut-ups as they are. Pretty good singers, too. Good part of the way, they sung "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean," and "How Can I Bear to Leave Thee," nice and slow, you know, a good deal of tenor and not much bass, and plenty of these" minor chords."(Yes, I know, some people call them "barber-shop chords," but Ithink "minor" is a nicer name.)

The band played "Hiawatha" eighteen times. One old fellow got on at Huntsville, and he says, to Joe Bangs (that's the leader), "Shay," he says, "play 'Turkey in er Straw,' won't you? Aw, go on.

Play it. Thass goof feller. Go on."

Joe, he never heard of the tune. Don't you know it? Goes like this:

. . . No, that ain't it. That's "Gray Eagle." Funny, I can't think how that tune starts. Well, no matter. They played an arrangement that had "Old Zip Coon" in it.

"Naw," he says, "tha' ain' it 't all. Go on. Play it. Play 'Turkey in er Straw.' Ah, ye don't know it. Thass reason. Betch don' know it. Don' know 'Turkey in er Straw!' Ho! Caw seff ml-m' sishn.

Ho! You - you - you ain' no m'sishn. You - you you're zis bluff."Only about half-past eight, too. Think of that! So early in the morning. Ah me! That's one of the sad features of such an occasion.

If there is anything more magnificent than a firemen's parade, Idon't know what it is. The varnished woodwork on the apparatus looks as if it had just come out of the shop and every bit of bright work glitters fit to strike you blind. You take, now, a nice hose-reel painted white and striped into panels with a fine red line, every other panel fruits and flowers, and every other panel a piece of looking-glass shaped like a cut of pie and; I tell you, it looks gay. That's what it does. It looks gay. Some of the hook-and-ladder trucks are just one mass of golden-rod and hydrangeas, and some of them are all fixed with this red-white-and-blue paper rope, sort of chenille effect, or more like a feather boa. Everybody has on white cotton gloves, and those entitled to carry speaking trumpets have bouquets in the bells of them, salvias, and golden-rod, and nasturtiums, and marigolds, and all such.

The Wapatomicas always have a dog up on top of their wagon. First off, you would think it didn't help out much, it is such a forlorn looking little fice; but this dog, I want you to know, waked up the folks late one night, 'way 'long about ten or eleven o'clock, barking at a fire. Saved the town, as you might say. And after that, the fire-boys took him for a mascot. I guess he didn't belong to anybody before. And another wagon has a chair on it, and in that chair the cutest little girl you almost eyer saw, hair all frizzed at the ends, and a wide blue sash and her white frock starched as stiff as a milk-pail. Everybody says: "Aw, ain't she just too sweet ?"The Caledonias have tried to make quite a splurge this year. They walk four abreast, with their arms locked, and their white gloves on each other's shoulders. Their truck has on it what they call "an allegorical figure." There is a kind of a business (looks to me like it is the axle and wheels of a toy wagon, stood up on end and covered with white paper muslin and a string tied around the middle)that is supposed to be an hour-glass. Then there is a scythe covered with cotton batting, and then a man in a bath-robe (I saw the figure of the goods when the wind blew it open) also covered with white cotton batting. The man has a wig and beard of wicking. First, Ithought it was Santa Claus, and then I saw the scythe and knew it must be old Father Time. The hour-glass puzzled me no little though.

The man has cotton batting wings. One of them is a little wabbly, but what can you expect from Caledonia? They're always trying to butt the bull off the bridge. They're jealous of our town. Oh, they stooped to all the mean, underhanded tricks you ever heard of to get the canning factory to go to their place instead of here.

But we know a thing or two ourselves. Yes, we got the canning factory, all right, all right.