THE OLD STANDARDS OF BUCKLESBURY.
PLEASANT old Bucklesbury ! Can I ever forget the happy hours I have spent in thee? Favorite resort of schoolboys in their August holidays, here were my happiest vacations passed. When I first knew Bucklesbury, it was a place of some five or six hundred inhabitants, none of them very rich, none very poor. Each of its indwellers was known to all, and a sociability that sprung from the heart, united them in the bonds of neighborly kindness. Their dwellings were not closely packed together as I have seen in some villages which ape the style and appearance of cities, but, generally speaking, each house stood alone, environed by its well kept garden, abounding in flowers. There was no scarcity of fine old shade trees in its highways and byways.
It is now many years since I spent an August there, and most whom I loved therein have been carried to their resting-places in the church-yard ; but I love to think of them, and would pay the tribute of a few lines to their memory . It is pleasant to me to remember "the old standards," as the members of the oldest families in the place were called by uncle Bob, the negro barber, waiter and fiddler, himself, perhaps, the oldest inhabitant. Bob knew the dates of all the births, marriages and deaths that had occurred in Bucklesbury for sixty years. He was the standing chronicle and universal referee in all matters of village chronology ; the decision of the relative importance of modern fires and floods, snow-storms and hail-storms was of course his privilege as the " oldest inhabitant," whose memory as to such matters is always considered unquestionable, by way of exception to the usually received opinion that the memory grows weak with age. In matters of pedigree, I think Bob was worth a whole college of heralds. To all, gentle and simple, Bob was invariably civil, but the old standards, the representatives of those families in which he had lived in his youthful days were the chosen objects of his mingled love and reverence. Of nothing was he fonder of discoursing than of the old standards, except, perhaps, the eventful occurrence of his holding General Washington's horse for ten minutes. A stranger could not be long in Bob's company without hearing of that horse-holding, or of the old standards of Bucklesbury, perhaps of both.. In the largest house in the main street lived Major Lane, an especial favorite of mine. A widower without children, he loved to have us boys about him, and his house and grounds were freely open to us. He had served through the Revolution with much credit, and returned to "the dull pursuits of civic life" with a fortune somewhat impaired, but a constitution as vigorous as ever. How he loved to speak, and how we loved to
hear of Brandywine, Trenton, and Monmouth battles, in all of which he had done good service as a captain of cavalry ! It was a great day with him when he could gather thirty or forty boys about him in his grounds and drill us. The carpenter had made for him, in a rough way, three or four dozen wooden guns, and having armed us with these, the Major would go through his engagements in miniature, it being first settled by lot who should personate, for the time being, the British or the more odious Hessians. How gloriously we marched and countermarched, charged and retreated. The only drawback to our sport was that the boys who played King George's men' would sometimes become so interested as to be harder to defeat than was considered proper. Our old friend stood upon a little eminence, pealing forth his orders in that magnificent voice of his "Advance light infantry !" " Hessians fall back," "Forward Riflemen," and so on. In front of his door the Major had planted a battery, two small brass cannons, one-pounders, I believe. These we were sometimes allowed to drag about and pretend to fire, our mothers having strictly prohibited the use of gunpowder in our engagements. Twice a year the Major discharged them himself-on the Fourth of July and the Twenty-Second of February, whose return was duly announced to the village by a Federal salute at sunrise, and a National salute at noon from the Major's pieces. I was told that on these anniversaries, the Major was in high glee, wearing his old continentals well brushed, and having his hair doubly powdered and his queue arranged with unusual pains for the occasion. A supper for a large party of his friends usually closed the day. On the Fourth of July his door posts were hidden with wreaths and garlands, and they who had no flowers of their own raising for the adornment of their houses, which was then a general custom in the village on that day, were very welcome to Major Lee's garden. Perhaps there is more noise now in Bucklesbury on "the glorious Fourth," but I may doubt if there is as much real enjoyment or so heartfelt a veneration for the day and the men who made it memorable as in the times of which I am speaking. Miss Susan Slocum, who resided across the way from the Major's, was another of the old standards. A maiden lady of between forty and fifty-uncle Bob, who was a great admirer of her, never thought it right to be more particular- with much of this world's wealth at her disposal, her house was the abode of hospitality and kindness. The best society in the place was here to be met with ; I have spent many happy evenings there. Yet with most of the boys, her domain was not so desirable a resort, for she was very particular in her injunctions as to our deportment on her premises, not allowing us to pluck a fruit or flower without express permission, a restraint ill suited to a boy's idea of liberty.
