Page:The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson (1924).pdf/65

Rh of military music on the air, at intervals. It was begun with an address by some distinguished person, and this was followed by a prayer of thanks for the ingathering of the crops. The procession then formed at the Amherst House, an inspiring band leading the way, while mounted escorts, with a military hint in dress and style, cavorted hither and thither. The ploughing match was of intense interest, held just west of the church on the Hadley road. Draft matches were held on the west side of the green or common. The exhibition of horses included the entire space of the common and down the Main Street. Deacon Luke Sweetser, Seth Nims, and Emily's father, Squire Dickinson, were invariably owners of fine horses, and they drove about on these occasions sitting very straight in the backless open buggies, reins taut, and the high showy heads of their steeds refusing the senseless check. People turned to look after them—and in these latter days one might not irreverently exclaim, "Where are the horsemen and the chariots thereof?"

From early morning on Commencement Day, the common was the camping-ground for fakirs' tents, peddlers' carts, every imaginable sort of vendor, and most delightful of all girls and boys in the Sunday best from Shutesbury and Pelham and all the region about, hand in hand, with arms entwined, enjoying the outdoors part of the show, and the wonderful if to them meaningless array in the old village church. Everybody was there—wonderful young men declaiming even more wonderful pieces on the big stage, where all the Trustees in stiff collars and stiffer dignity were sitting with other important men of the Valley, listening to the eloquence displayed and sizing up the orthodoxy. The most