CHAPTER XIII
THE FOURTH OF JULY
B'lindy had said, truly, that "she guessed if Webb got up the Fourth of July doin's they'd be doin's no one'd forget!"
Webb's "doin's" took the form of a parade—a parade in which the very young and the very old should take part. At its head Webb himself would march, with the two recently returned soldiers, one on each side. The young people would come in costumes depicting the characters of the men associated with the Island history.
"Mrs. Eaton wants you to help her dress the children, Anne," Miss Sabrina had announced, the day before the Fourth. "She asked me to ask you to be at the meeting-house at 9 o'clock.
"Oh, I'd love to," Nancy had responded eagerly.
"It is very nice of her, I am sure," Miss Sabrina had added. "She wants to be pleasant." And a hint of apology in Miss Sabrina's voice made Nancy suddenly think that perhaps Mrs. Eaton was not always pleasant.
She remembered that B'lindy had added the Eaton name to the list of acquaintances possible to a Leavitt.
The very air of that Fourth of July morning was a-tingle with excitement. When Nancy turned into the village street it seemed to her filled with people, all in Sunday-best and holiday spirits. The green in front of the meeting-house was alive with eager, tumbling youngsters.
Mrs. Eaton, a large woman with what Nancy called a prune mouth and watery blue eyes, greeted Nancy effusively. Nancy was a "dear"—she said it with a rising squeak—to help her! There wasn't a great deal to do—the little dears were going to wear white caps and capes and represent a band of peace; the girls would carry wreaths of white syringa. She'd thought of it all herself—two days before.
"I'm so glad to be rushed to death," she explained, patting down a small cap on a small head. "Of course you know my Archie is still in Germany!"
Nancy had not known it, nor, indeed, anything about Archie, but she nodded sympathetically.
"Cyrus Eaton says I'm a wonder—just a wonder! But I suppose I ought to be thankful my Archie's come through without losing any of his arms or legs! Now, my dear, if you'll fix the rest of these children I'll run down and look at the Indian Chiefs. Bless me, I don't know what Webb'd do without me. But then, I'm glad to do it—it keeps my mind off Archie." She panted off with a patronizing smile that took in Nancy and the group of staring youngsters.
To Nancy, whose life had been spent mostly in the big cities of the world, this glimpse of village life was a novel experience. She loved it—the spontaneous gaiety of it all, the round-eyed children that crowded to her, noisily clamoring to have their "things" put on. The notes of a bugle floated up the street. Fire crackers popped off with the regularity of machine-gun fire. From every side came loud, eager voices. She was glad she was a part of it all. As she finished arranging its cap, she patted each head, just as Mrs. Eaton had done, but in Nancy's smile there was something that had not been in Mrs. Eaton's, so she invariably won a quick smile in response.
Suddenly Nancy spied Nonie and Davy, hand in hand, watching the other children from a little distance. Their childish longing betrayed itself in the unwonted way their hands clung together, in the wistfulness of their faces. Nancy hailed them.
"Come along—hurry!" she cried. They ran eagerly to her. Nancy seized a cape and a cap.
"Dast we?" asked Davy, very gravely.
"Why, of course. Quick—take this cap, Davy. Here, Nonie, is a wreath. Now—stand here—in this line!" She placed them between two other children. "All of you—faces forward! Be ready for the signal. Right foot—don't forget."
Mrs. Eaton bustled up. "Everything ready, my dear? It's perfectly beautiful—just beautiful!" in breathless staccato. "I wish my Archie could see it! I'm actually inspired!" Her red, moist face suggested that she had made a mistake in her choice of words. She ran around the group of children, standing in ragged file, impatiently awaiting the signal to start. "The little dears—just like a beautiful band of peace!" Suddenly she stared and her face flushed a darker red. "Nonie Hopworth, how dared you come here!"
Nonie's lips quivered and her eyes went imploringly to Nancy. Davy tossed his head defiantly. Neither answered.
"I called them, Mrs. Eaton."
Now there was no "my dear" on Mrs. Eaton's tongue. It clicked sharply against her teeth. She was too outraged, too, to pick her words.
"Get right away!" She seized Davy by the shoulder. "Little good-for-nothings! This is a patriotic celebration and we don't want any Hopworth's in it!"
Nancy's eyes blazed. "Oh, Mrs. Eaton! Don't—they're just children! They——"
"You're a stranger here in Freedom, Miss Leavitt—I'll be pleased if you'll let me manage this! I say it's an insult to our heroes to have Eric Hopworth's young 'uns here—an insult to Freedom's noble history!" The ruffles on her bosom heaved in her anger. "What'd Eric Hopworth do for his country! When I think of my Archie——" What she might have thought did not find expression, because of the pins she was tearing roughly from Nonie's cape and thrusting between her teeth. "Go off now," she panted between the shining row. "Go off where you came from!"
Then, almost simultaneously with the approach of a dishevelled Indian hollering between cupped hands that "p'rade's goin' start," came Webb's warning whistle from down the street. Mrs. Eaton straightened to an appropriate dignity of bearing. She made a waving motion of her arm toward her little dears that ignored Nancy, standing back, dumb with the cruelty of it all.
But Nonie's crestfallen face stung Nancy to sudden action. While the band of peace fluttered wildly back to its position, Nancy, with an arm about each, moved with the children toward the church. She moved quickly, too, for a sudden inspiration had seized her. She remembered three flags on standards in the Sunday-school room. She bade Davy get them.
"Do just what I tell you," she commanded. "The cat!" she threw over her shoulder.
All Freedom was too intent upon catching a first glimpse of Webb's host moving up the village street to notice the strange sight of Nancy and her companions racing through the back yards and fields that skirted the main thoroughfare. A long tear in Nancy's skirt testified to the speed with which she had climbed all obstacles. Such was the fire in her soul that she could have climbed a mountain!
In the shade of a wide maple tree, B'lindy, resplendent in fresh gingham and her good-as-new-last-year's-hat, watched Webb's "doin's" with a heart that fluttered with pride. No town in the whole Island could turn out more folks! But, then, no town on the Island had a prouder history!
With his badges glittering on the faded blue coat, Webb marched at the head of his "p'rade" in his uniform of the Grand Army of the Republic. On either side of him stepped the recently returned soldiers, their young-old faces turned straight ahead, their worn tunics attesting to other lines of march through other village streets. Behind them were the three soldier boys who had not "gone across." In pure enjoyment of the occasion they had forgotten the resentment against fate that they had cherished. A group of boys and girls in Indian costume portrayed that epoch of Freedom's history. One great warrior brandished a tomahawk that had been dug up in a nearby field and was now kept in a suitable setting at the post-office. Close at their heels followed four staid Puritan men, broad white collars pinned over Sunday coats. Ethan Allen and his brother Ira, beloved heroes of the little Islands, were there in character. Two lanky lads wore the uniform of 1861. Mrs. Eaton's "band of peace" in straggling lines, brought up the rear.
Greeted from each side by lusty cheers, through a cloud of dust, to the tap-a-tap-tap of three proud drummers, the pageant moved down the street. It had been Webb's plan that the "p'rade" should halt before the stoop of the hotel, where Mr. Todd, the postmaster, in a collar much too high and a coat much too tight, waited to give an address of welcome. But as Webb's eyes roved with pardonable pride over the fringe of spectators on each side of the line of march, they suddenly spied an unexpected sight. On the stepping block in front of the school house stood Nancy, her white skirts blowing, with Nonie and Davy on each side. And each held, proudly upright, an American flag.
It was a pretty sight—the colors of the flags fluttering over the three bare heads, the young faces tilted earnestly forward. Webb saw in it a friendly effort on Miss Anne's part to add to the success of his "doin's." So as the line of march approached the stepping-block, he solemnly saluted the three.
Advancing, the returned soldiers also saluted, stiffly. The drummers lost a beat in order to wave their drumsticks. The Indians gaily brandished their clubs, the Puritans nodded, the "boys in blue" mimiced their heroes of the hour with a stiff bending and jerking of their right arms.
But then and there Mrs. Eaton fell back from her position at the head of the "band of peace." Nancy, wickedly watching from the corner of a perfectly innocent appearing eye, saw her give a gasp as she stepped aside.
Nonie and Davy, exalted into an ecstasy of joy over the part they had finally played in the celebration, stared in amazement at Nancy's suppressed peals of laughter, to which she gave way only when the last wee dove of peace had trailed off toward the hotel. And not only Davy and Nonie stared; from out of the spectators came Peter Hyde.
"I have cooked my goose—now," giggled Nancy, wiping her eyes and holding out a hand. "She was so funny! But I have outraged Freedom's noble history!" Nancy twisted her lips to resemble Mrs. Eaton's.
"If you'll let me help you down we might hurry and hear some of the Honorable Jeremiah Todd's oration," suggested Peter Hyde.
Nancy jumped lightly to the ground. "I wouldn't dare," she answered. "Mrs. Eaton only waits to tear me limb from limb! I saw it in her pallid eye. You don't know what I've done! Davy, you and Nonie carry these flags carefully back to the Sunday-school. And what do you say—in celebration of this day—to a swim—this afternoon, at the Cove!"
They exclaimed their approval of the suggestion. Nonie lingered.
"Do you know what I pretended then?" she asked, affectionately gripping Nancy's arm. "I pretended I was Joan of Arc, all in white, riding on a big horse with bugles, calling to my army. Miss Denny read to me all about it. Oh, it was grand!" She sighed, because the moment had passed. Davy pranced impatiently.
"Oh, come 'long—stop yer actin' lies!" Then, to Nancy, with a questioning look that said such fortune seemed too good to be true: "'Honest?' 'Bout the swimmin'."
Nancy nodded mysteriously. "Honest to goodness—at three bells!"
She watched the children scamper away, then turned eyes dark with indignation to Peter Hyde.
"How can anyone be cruel to children?" she cried. "How can anyone hurt them?"
Peter did not know what she was talking about, but he agreed with all his heart.
"Kids—and dogs and cats and—little things," he added. "I shot a rabbit once when I was fifteen, and when I went up to get it, it was still breathing, and looked so pitiful and small—I couldn't help but feel that it hadn't had a chance 'gainst a fellow like me. I had to kill it then. That was enough for me! I haven't shot—any sort of living things—like that—since!"
His step shortened to Nancy's and together they turned their backs upon Jeremiah's cheering audience and walked slowly homeward. Her mind concerned with the children, Nancy told Peter all that had happened—of finding Nonie in the orchard, of the child's "pretend" games, of her call upon Liz. Then she concluded with an account of the incident of the morning mimicing, comically, Mrs. Eaton's outraged manner.
"As if it would hurt her or her Archie or—or anyone else in this old place to make two youngsters happy," Nancy exclaimed, disgustedly. "I'm going to do everything I can, while I'm at Happy House, to make up to them," she finished.
Peter assured her that he wanted to help. How much the desire was inspired by sympathy for Nonie and Davy or by the winning picture Nancy made, her rebel strands of red-brown hair blowing across her flushed cheeks, no one could say. And when at the gate of Happy House they separated, Peter promising to be on hand at the Cove at four o'clock, Nancy watched him swing down the road with a pleasant sense of comradeship.