Page:Peterson Magazine 1869B.pdf/50

FOURTH OF JULY IN JONESVILLE. 55 leveled at him, was muskets he would have been a dead man so quick he never would have realized what hurt him.

Countin 2 eyes to a person and the exceptions are triflin, there was at least 700 and 50 eyes aimed at him as he walked through the croud. He looked as if he knew it, but wus determined to live above it. He was dressed in a new shinin suit of black, his complexion was light, his hair which was just turned from white, wus combed straight back from his ferhead and hung down long over his coat coHar. He had a long mous- tashe, about the color of his hair, only beering a little more on the sandy, and a couple of pale blue eyes with a pair of spectacles over em.

As he walked up the stagin behind the Editor of the Augur the band struck up playing “ Hail to the Chief that in triumph advances.”

The Editor of the Augur come forward as soon as the band stopped playin, and sez he ‘Fellow citizens of Jonesville, I have the honor and the priviledge of presentin to you the Oriter of the Day, Aspine Todd!”

Mr. Todd imegiately come forward, and made a low bow.

‘‘Bretherin and sisters of Jonesville,” sez he, "friends and patrons of Liberty, In rising upon this aeriter, I have signified by that act, a desire and a willingness to adress you. I am not here fellow and sister citizens, to outrage your feelings by trifling remarks, I am not here male patrons of Liberty to lure your noble, and you  female patrons, your tender, footsteps into the flowery fields of useless rhetorical eloquence; I  am here, noble brothers and sisters of Jones-

gree ; at his request I beg to be permited to ville, not in a mephitical manner, and I trust hint- that if the old gentleman, the bald headed not in a mentorial- but I am here to present a old gentleman of age-whom I respect-I adfew plain truths, in a plain manner for your mire- I confide in, if he will, if he can, concal

consideration. My friends we are in one sense but tennifolious blossoms of life-or if you will pardon the tergiversation-we are all but mino rating tenuirosters, hovering upon an illnition of mythoplasm ."

Jess so" said old Peedick, who was settin on a bench rite under the speakers stand, with his fat red face lookin up shinin with entho saism, (and the brandy he had took to honer the  old revolutionary hero's) " Jess so, so we be."

Aspine looked down on him in a troubled kind of a way for a minute, and then he went on. "Noble inhabitents of Jonesville, we are acti- nolitic beings, each of our soles like the acal- phia, radiate a circle of prismatic tentacles, showing the divine irridescent essence of which composed are they."

"Jess so !" shouted old Peedick, "jess so." "And if we are content to moulder out our existence, like fibrous reticulated polypus, clinging to the crustaceous crusts of custom, if we cling not, like soaring prytanes to the phantoms that lower their sceptres down through the murky waves of retrogression, endeavoring to lure us upward in the scale of progressive being —in what esential degree do we differ from the acalphia?”

«Jess so,”’ sez old Peedick, looking round defiantly on the audience, ‘There he has got you, how can they?”

Aspine Todd stopped agin, looked down on Peedick, and put his hand to his brow in a wild kind of a way fer a minute, and then went on—

Let us, noble bretheren in the broad brotherhood of humanity, let us rise, let us prove ourselves superior to the acalphia——”

“Yes, less,” sez old Peedick, ‘“‘less prove ourselves”

«Let us shame the actinice’”——

Yes Jess so, less shame him!” sez old Peedick: and in his enthosaism he got up and holered agin, ‘‘ Less shame him!”

Aspine stopped agin, drank several swallers of water—and then whispered a few words to ‘the Editer of the Augur, who imegiatly came forward and sed—* Although it is a scene of touching beauty to see an old gentleman, and a   bald headed one, so carried away with his feel-   ‘ ings, so in love with eloquence, and to give   ; such remarkable proofs of it at his age, still as  it is the request of my young friend, and I am   proud to be permitted to say ‘my young friend,’   in regard to one gifted in so remarkible a de-  gree; at his request I beg to be permited to  hint—that if the old gentleman, the bald headed  old gentleman of age—whom I respect—I ad-

confide in, if he will, if he can, concal  his admiration, supress his applause, the bald  headed old gentleman in the linen coat will   confer a faver, on my gifted young friend, and  through him indirectly to Jonesville—to Ame- rica—and the great cause of humanity throughout the length and breadth of the country.”

Here he made a low bow and sat down.

Aspine continude his piece without any more  interuption, till most the last, he wanted the  public of Jonesville to «drown black care in the  deep waters of oblivion, mind not her agonizing  throes of desolving being—let the deep waters   cover her black head—and march onward.” Then the old gentleman forgot himself and sprang up and hollered—“ Yes dround the black   cat—hold her head under—don’t mind her   sereamin, there’l be cats enough left in the - world- less dround her."

Aspine finished in a few words and set down