FOURTH
OF
JULY
IN
JONESVILLE .
BY JOSIAH ALLEN'S WIFE.
DEAR MR. PETERSON
A fu daze before the 4th Betsey Babbet come in to our house in the mornin, and sez she. “Have u heard the nuze?” ‘No!’ sez I pretty brief for I was jest putten in the ingregiances to a 6 quart pan loof of fruit cake and on them ocasions I want my mind cool and unruffled. “Aspine Todd has concluded to deliver the oratien” sez she ‘Aspine Todd! Who’s he?” sez I coolly. ‘Josiah Allens wife,” sez she, ‘hove u fergot the sweet poem that thrilled us so in the Jonesville Augur a few weeks sence?” ‘I haint been thrilled by no poem,” sez I with an icy face pourin in my melted butter. ‘Then it must be you haint never saw it, I hove got the poem in my portmoney and I will read it to ye,” sez she not heedin the dark froun gatherin on my eye brow. ‘Some think,” she continude “that he has read my poems in the Gimlet, and in this delikit and cautious manner is makin overtoors fer my freendship and ocquaintance. I dont know, I am sure, I dont say it is so; but I will say, when I read the poem I had feelins I never had before—and if fate is threwin of us togather but te return to the poem, if there is enything I dote on it is a poem that the commen masses cant understand. and this is so beautifuly misty—so sweetly vague,—but I wont keep you from the treat eny longer,” sez she, and she begun to read—
A QUESTIONIN SAIL SENT OVER THE MYSTIC SEA
BY ASPINE TODD
So the majestic thunder bolt of feeling
Out of our inner lives, our unseen beings flow
Vague dreams revealing
Oh is itso? Alas! or no,
How be it—Ah! How so?
Is matter going to rule the deathless mind
What is matter? Is it indeed so?
Oh truths combined;
Do the ‘magaloi theoi’ still tower to and fro—
Now do they move? How flow?
Monstrous—aeriform, phantoms sublime,
Come with your Cadmien teeth, and my soul gnaw,
Through chiliasms of time;
Transcendentally and remorselessly gnaw,
By what agency? Is it a law?
Mournful, enormous, shadows immense,
Why do ye leer at = oh so mockingly,
Through vapors de:
Who is the Phastom?’ How does it see?
How strange! Alas! to be—to be.
Perish the vacuous in huge immensities,
Hurl the broad thunderbolt of feeling free,
So lulls the bellowing surf upon the mystic sea,
lls the owing surf
— so? ‘Alas! Ah me.
“Haint it deep,” sez she as she finished
readen it. “Deep,” sez I, “I wish” sez I,
lookin keenly into her virgin face, ‘I wish it
wuz deeper.” I didnt say where I wished it
wuz, but she read the dark meaning of my brow
as I struck the choppin knife impressivly down
on the raisins in my choppin bowl, and she said
no more, and started fer home, in a few minutes.
The celebration wuz held in Mr. Peedicks sugar bush, and was a very good place. I was on the ground in good season, when I have to go through jobs that I dread, I am for lookin em straight in the face, takin em by the fore- lock, and grapplin with em at once. I dont believe in Pick nicks and celebrations, especialy for old married folks, but Josiah was deter- mined, and the children didn’t give me no peace, so I went, and as I said I was one of the first on the spot, and as for vittles, if I do say it there was’nt any better than mine, nor more ov em acordingly.
Pretty soon the folks began to come, and kept a comin. I had’nt no idee there could be so many folks skairt up in Jonesville. I thought to myself, I wonder if they’d flock out so to a prayer meetin. But they kept a comin, all kinds of folks in all kinds of vehicles, from a 4 horse team down to peacible lookin men and women drawin baby wagons, with 2 babies in most of em. The United S’ates in the form of young women with their names on blue sashes, was drawed into the grove with 6 horses, Vermont and Rhode Island settin in front with the driver. They looked pretty as pinks, only New York fell in getting out, and spraint her ankle, and went lame all day.
One great double wagon trimmed with cedar, and so full ov men, women, and children that it seemed as if some ov em must spill out—had a flag with “‘We Come,” printed on it in great letters. I thought to myself, that haint nese- sary, dont we realize only too deeply that you have come, and that you keep a comin.
There was a stagin built of boards in most the center of the grove and most all the leadin men of Jonesville, as they come went up on it, and sot down.
It was most noon when Aspine Todd walked slowly on to the ground arm in arm with the Editor of the Augur. If the eyes that was
