THE BALD EAGLE. I'll have you chronicled, and chronicled, and cut and chronicled, and sung in all-to-be-praised sonnets, and graved in new brave ballads, and all tongues shall troule you in Sæcula Sæculorum. Old Comedy. IN one of the little villages sprinkled along the delicious valley of the Connecticut, there stood, not many years ago, a little tavern called the Bald Eagle. It was an old fashioned building with a small antique portico in front, where, of a lazy summer afternoon, the wise men of the village assembled to read newspapers, talk politics, and drink beer. Before the door stood a tall yellow sign post, from which hung a white sign, emblazoned with a fierce bald-headed eagle, holding an olive branch in one claw, and a flash of forked lightning in the other. Underneath was written in large black letters "The Bald Eagle: Good Entertainment for Man and Beast: by Jonathan Dewlap, Esq." One calm, sultry summer evening, the knot of village politicians had assembled, according to custom, at the tavern door. At the entrance sat the landlord, justice of the peace and quorum, lolling in a rocking chair, and dozing over the columns of an electioneering hand bill. Along the benches of the portico were seated the village attorney, the schoolmaster, the tailor, and other personages of less note, but not less idle, nor less devoted to the affairs of the nation. To this worthy assembly of patriotic citizens the schoolmaster was drowsily doling forth the news of the latest Gazette. It was at that memorable epoch of our national history, when Lafayette returned to visit in the evening of his days the land that owed so much to his youthful enthusiasm; and to see in the soft decline of life, the consummation of his singular glory, in the bosom of that country where it first began. His approach was every where hailed with heartstirring joy. There was but one voice throughout the land; and every village through which he passed, hailed him with rural festivities, addresses, odes, and a dinner at the tavern. Every step of his journey was regularly and minutely recorded in those voluminous chronicles of our country, the newspapers: and column after column was filled with long notices of the dinners he had eaten, and of the toasts drunk, and of the songs sung on the occasion. * From The Token, and Atlantic Souvenir,' for 1833. A Christmas and New Year's Present, published at Boston. As the schoolmaster detailed to the group around him an account of these busy festivals, which were so rapidly succeeding each other all over the country, the little soul he possessed kindled up within him. With true oratorical emphasis he repeated a long list of toasts drunk on a recent celebration of the kind—the American Eagle,' -the day we celebrate,'' the New England Fair,'-' the Heroes who fought, bled, and died at Bunker Hill-of which I am one!' and a thousand others equally patriotic. He was interrupted by the merry notes of the stage horn, twanging in long drawn blasts over the blue hills, that skirted the village; and shortly after a cloud of dust came rolling its light volume along the road, and the stage coach wheeled up to the door. It was driven by a stout thick-set young fellow, with a glowing red face, that peeped out from under the wide brim of a white hat, like the setting sun from beneath a summer cloud. He was dressed in a wren-tailed gingham coat, with pocket holes outside, and a pair of grey linen pantaloons, buttoned down each leg with a row of yellow bell buttons. His vest was stripped with red and blue: and around his neck he wore a coloured silk handkerchief, tied in a loose knot before, and tucked in at the waistband. Beside him on his coach box sat two dusty travellers in riding caps, and the group within, presented an uncomfortable picture of the miseries of travelling in a stage coach in the month of June. In an instant all was noise and confusion in the bar-room of the inn. Travellers, that had just arrived, and those about to set off in the evening coach, came crowding in with their baggage; some eager to secure places, and others lodgings. A noisy group was gathered at the bar, within which the landlady was bouncing to and fro in a huff, and gingling a great bunch of keys, like some wild animal at a raree-show, stalking about its cage, whisking its tail, and jingling its iron chain. The fire place was filled with pine boughs and asparagus tops; and over it the wall was covered with advertisements of new invented machines, patent medicines, toll gate and turnpike companies, and coarse prints of steam-boats, stage-coaches, opposition lines, and Fortune's home forever. In one corner stood an old fashioned oaken settee, with high back and crooked elbows, which served as a seat by day, and a bed by night: in another was a pile of trunks and different articles of a traveller's equipage: travelling coats hung here and there about the room; and the atmosphere was thick with the smoke of tobacco and the fumes of brandy. At length the sound of wheels was heard at the door; 'Stage ready,' shouted the coachman, putting his head in at the door; there was a hurry and bustle about the room; the travellers crowded out; a short pause succeeded; the carriage door was slammed to in haste; and the coach wheeled away, and disappeared in the dusk of the evening. The sound of its wheels had hardly ceased to be heard, when the tailor entered the bar-room with a newspaper in his hand, and strutted up to the squire and the schoolmaster, who sat talking together upon the settee, with a step that would have done honour to the tragedy hero of a strolling theatre. He had just received the tidings that Lafayette was on his way north. The stage driver had brought the news; the passengers confirmed it; it was in the newspapers; and of course there could be no doubt upon the subject. It now became a general topic of conversation in the bar-room. The villagers came in one by one; all were on tiptoe; all talked together, Lafayette, the Marquis, the Gin'ral! He would pass through the village in two days from then. What was to be done! The town authorities were at their wits' end, and were quite as anxious to know how they should receive their venerable guest, as they were to receive him. In the meantime, the news took wing. There was a crowd at the door of the post office talking with becoming zeal upon the subject; the boys in the street gave three cheers, and shouted 'Lafayette for ever,' and in less than ten minutes the approaching jubilee was known and talked of in every nook and corner of the village. The town authorities assembled in the little back parlour of the inn to discuss the subject more at leisure over a mug of cider, and conclude upon the necessary arrangements for the occasion. Here they continued with closed doors until a late hour; and after much debate, finally resolved to decorate the tavern hall; prepare a great dinner; order out the militia; and take the general by surprise. The lawyer was appointed to write an oration, and the schoolmaster an ode for the occasion. As night advanced, the crowd gradually dispersed from the street. Silence succeeded to the hum of rejoicing, and nothing was heard throughout the village but the occasional bark of a dog, the creaking of the tavern sign, and the no less musical accents of the one- keyed flute of the schoolmaster, who, perched at his chamber window in nightgown and slippers, serenaded the neighbourhood with Fire on the Mountains,' and half of 'Washington's march;' whilst the grocer who lived next door, roused from sweet dreams of treacle and brown sugar, lay tossing in his bed, and wishing the deuce would take the schoolmaster, with his Latin, and his one-keyed flute. As day began to peep next morning, the tailor was seen to issue out of the inn yard in the landlord's yellow waggon, with the negro hostler Cæsar, mounted behind, thumping about in the tail of the vehicle, and grinning with huge delight. As the grey of morning mellowed, life began its course again in the little village. The cock hailed the day-light cheerily; the sheep bleated from the hills; the sky grew softer and clearer; the blue mountains caught the rising sun; and the mass of white vapour that filled the valley, began to toss and roll itself away, like ebb of a feathery sea. Then the bustle of advancing day began; doors and windows were thrown open; the gate creaked on its hinge; carts rattled by; villagers were moving in the streets; and the little world began to go, like some ponderous machine, that, wheel after wheel, is gradually put in motion. In a short time the tailor was seen slowly returning along the road, with a waggon load of pine boughs and evergreens. The waggon was unloaded at the tavern door, and its precious cargo carried up into the hall, where the tailor, in his shirt sleeves, danced and capered about the room, with a hatchet in one hand, and a long knife in the other, like an Indian warrior before going to battle. In a moment the walls were stripped of the faded emblems of former holidays; garlands of withered roses were trampled under foot; old stars that had lost their lustre, were seen to fall; and the white pine chandelier was robbed of its yellow coat, and dangled from the ceiling, quite woe-begone and emaciated. But ere long the whole room was again filled with arches and garlands, and festoons, and stars, and all kinds of singular devices in green leaves and asparagus tops. Over the chimney piece were suspended, two American flags, with a portrait of general Washington beneath them; and the names of Trenton, Yorktown, Bunker Hill, &c., peeped out from between the evergreens, cut in red morocco, and fastened to the wall with a profusion of brass nails. Every part of the room was liberally decorated with paper eagles; and in a corner hung a little black ship, rigged with twine, and armed with a whole broadside of umbrella tips. It were in vain to attempt a description of all the wonders that started up beneath the tailor's hand, as from the touch of a magician's wand. In a word, before night every thing was in readiness. Travellers, that arrived in the evening, brought information, that the general would pass through the village at noon the next day; but without the slightest expectation of the jubilee that awaited him. The tailor was beside himself with joy, at the news; and pictured to himself with good-natured self-complacency the surprise and delight of the venerable patriot, when he should receive the public honours prepared for him, and the new blue coat, with bright buttons and velvet collar, which was then making at his shop. In the meantime the landlady had been busy in making preparations for a sumptuous dinner; the lawyer had been locked up all day, hard at work upon his oration; and the pedagogue was hard ridden by the phantom of a poetical eulogy, that bestrod his imagination like the night-mare. Nothing was heard in the village but the bustle of preparation, and the martial music of drums and fifes. For a while the ponderous wheel of labour was seen to stand still. The clatter of the cooper's mallet was silent, the painter left his brush, the cobbler his awl, and the blacksmith's bellows lay sound asleep, with its nose buried in the ashes. The next morning at day-break, the whole military force of the town was marshalled forth in front of the tavern, armed and equip ped as the law directs.' Conspicuous among this multitude stood the tailor, arrayed in a coat of his own making, all lace and buttons, and a pair of buff pantaloons, drawn up so tight that he could hardly touch his feet to the ground. He wore a military hat, shaped like a clam shell, with little white goose feathers stuck all round the edge. By his side stood the gigantic figure of the blacksmith, in rusty regimentals. At length the roll of the drum announced the order for forming the ranks, and the valiant host displayed itself in a long wavering line. Here stood a tall lantern-jawed fellow, all legs, furbished up with a red waistcoat, and shining green coat, a little round wool hat perched on the back of his head, and downward tapering off in a pair of yellow nankeens, twisted and wrinkled about the knees, as if his legs had been screwed into them. Beside him stood a longwaisted being, with a head like a hurra's nest, set off with a willow hat, and a face that looked as if it were made of sole leather, and a gash cut in the middle of it for a mouth. Next came a little man with fierce black whiskers, and sugar loaf hat, equipped with a long fowl ing piece, a powder horn, and a white canvass knapsack, with a red star on the back of it. Then a country bumpkin standing bolt upright, his head elevated, his toes turned out, holding fast his gun with one hand, and keeping the other spread out upon his right thigh. Then figured the descendent of some revolutionary veteran, arrayed in the uniform, and bearing the arms and accoutrements of his ancestor, a cocked hat on his head, a heavy musket on his shoulder, and on his back a large knapsack marked U. S. Here was a man in straw hat and gingham jacket; and there a pale nervous fellow, buttoned up to the chin in a drab great-coat, to guard him against the morning air, and keep out the fever and ague. 'Attention the whole! Front face! Eyes right! Eyes left! steady! Attention to the roll-call!' shouted the blacksmith in a voice like a volcano. • Peleg Popgun!'- Here.'-' Tribulation Sheepshanks!'-' He-ee-re.'-' Return Jonathan Babcock !''Here.' And so on through a whole catalogue of long hard names, 'Attention! Shoulder-arms! Very well. Fall back there on the extreme left! No talking in the ranks! Present-arms! |