Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1894 — WHEN WE WERE BOYS. [ARTICLE]

WHEN WE WERE BOYS.

A Picture of an Old-time Celebration In th« Country. “Now, Billy, don’t go near them anvils.” “Sammy, will you stand back, or do you want to get blowed up'/ And a stranger to boys and to ttie custom would have concluded that Sammy certainly did want to get “blowed up, for it was the regu ar complaint of the men in charge that there "wouldn’t be a speck of danger if it weren’t for the derned boys crowdin' in so. ” This was at 4 o'clock in the morning of a Fourth of July, years ago, in a country village. The boys Were hurrying toward the public square, where the anvils were located, barefooted and clad for the most part only In tow linen shirts and jean pantaloon'*, and buttoning the latter as they ran. for the affair was too imnortanj to be missed on account of a little Informality in toilet. And cfose aft 6r r them came two or three mothers <with nervous warnings of caution. The rising suaj showed the whole population up, and in the ceurftry as flues boom of cannon or ring of bells could be heard, there was great excitement among the boys, each eager to get his breakfast and be off for the village. The men and women cgme in later if it wasn’t a “good harvest day.” By 10 o'clock all ths town Was out. and so many fsom the country that the village contained Z.OOO Or 4,000 peop a. If the season had been very early “down on the sand barrens, ” rflfew watermelons were for but not often. Of home-made beer, gin&er cakes, currant pies, striped candy and the like, the sale was wonderfu^—a stand under ever*,- big tree. In the village grocery the big cheese was cut and regular customers invited to taste it. “Cuba six” cigars (six cents) we e so plentiful that every#boy oould have one. The men gave way to unwonted generosity, and whisky they had always witn them —*\io cents* a gallon, and that thats good.” Shutting uf> the “groceries"—they were not called “saloons" till near the war—would have provoked a riot. The sp aker gave “old England” a few vigorous whacks, pitied the “objects of foreign despotisms,* congratulated his fellow -citizens on theil- glorious freedom, And generally wound up with a statement that ‘‘but for our noble forefathers, who on this day so many years ago declared these colonies free and independent, We, fellow-citi-zens, would have been the sub. ect ot a depotism like the wretoned Irish, perhaps, trodden ihto the mireaf shivery and compelled to give one-third o i all

we possessed to the king and his soldieis.” In the enumeration of the horrors of despotism one count nearly always appeared—tli at one-third of what the farmer raised would be taken by the despot!—Boston Post.