lots to form attractive backgrounds--such a day for Mother
Beggarlegs! The hotels, and the shops and stalls for
eating and drinking, were the only places in which business
was done; the public sentiment put universal shutters
up, but the public appetite insisted upon excepting the
means to carnival. An air of ceremonial festivity those
fastened shutters gave; the sunny little town sat round
them, important and significant, and nobody was ever
known to forget that they were up, and go on a fool's
errand. No doubt they had an impressiveness for the young
countryfolk that strolled up and down Main Street in
their honest best, turning into Snow's for ice-cream when
a youth was disposed to treat. (Gallantry exacted ten-cent
dishes, but for young ladies alone, or family parties,
Mrs Snow would bring five-cent quantities almost without
asking, and for very small boys one dish and the requisite
number of spoons.) There was discrimination, there was
choice, in this matter of treating. A happy excitement
accompanied it, which you could read in the way Corydon
clapped his soft felt hat on his head as he pocketed the
change. To be treated--to ten-cent dishes--three times
in the course of the day by the same young man gave matter
for private reflection and for public entertainment,
expressed in the broad grins of less reckless people. I
speak of a soft felt hat, but it might be more than that:
it might be a dark green one, with a feather in it; and
here was distinction, for such a hat indicated that its
owner belonged to the Independent Order of Foresters,
who Would leave their spring wheat for forty miles round
to meet in Elgin and march in procession, wearing their