Poganuc People Their Loves and Lives by Harriet Beecher Stowe--Delphi Classics (Illustrated) by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Author:Harriet Beecher Stowe [STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Parts Edition 12 of 44 by Delphi Classics
Publisher: Delphi Classics (Parts Edition)
Published: 2017-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIX. SUMMER DAYS IN POGANUC.

SO passed Dolly’s Fourth of July; a confused dream of glory and patriotism, of wonderful sights and surprises — but, like a dream, it all melted away.

New England life was too practical and laborious to give more than one day to holiday performances, and with the night of the Fourth the whole pageant vanished. Hiel’s uniform, with its gold lace and feathers, returned to the obscurity of Mother Jones’s pillow-cases and camphor-gum, and was locked away in secret places; and Hiel was only a simple stage-driver, going forth on his route as aforetime. So with the trappings of the Poganuc Rangers — who the day before had glittered like so many knights-errant in the front of battle — all were laid by in silent waiting, and the Poganuc Rangers rose at four o’clock and put on their working clothes and cow-hide shoes, and were abroad with their oxen. The shoe-maker and the carpenter, who yesterday were transfigured in blue and gold, to-day were hammering shoe-soles and planing boards as if no such thing had happened. In the shadows of the night the cannon had vanished from the village green and gone where it came from; the flag on the Court-house was furled, and the world of Poganuc Center was again the same busy, literal, work-a-day world as ever. Only Liph Kingsbury, who had burned his hand with gunpowder in consequence of carrying too much New England rum in his head, and one or two boys, who had met with a sprain or bruise in the excitement of the day, retained any lasting memorials of the celebration.

It is difficult in this our era of railroads and steam to give any idea of the depths of absolute stillness and repose that brooded in the summer skies over the wooded hills of Poganuc. No daily paper told the news of distant cities. Summer traveling was done in stages, and was long and wearisome, and therefore there was little of that. Everybody staid at home, and expected to stay there the year through. A journey from Poganuc to Boston or New York was more of an undertaking in those days than a journey to Europe is in ours. Now and then some of the great square houses on the street of Poganuc Center received a summer visitor, and then everybody in town knew it and knew all about it. The visitor’s family, rank, position in life, probable amount of property, and genealogy to remote ancestors, were freely discussed and settled, till all Poganuc was fully informed. The elect circle of Poganuc called on them, and made stately tea-parties in their honor, and these entertainments pleasantly rippled the placid surface of society. But life went on there with a sort of dreamy stillness. The different summer flowers came out in their successive ranks in the neatly-kept garden; roses followed peonies, and white lilies came and went, and crimson and white phloxes stood ranged in midsummer ranks, and the yellow tribes of marigolds brought up the autumnal season.

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