"COME AND KISS YOO PAPA"
It was barely five o'clock the next morning, and long before the lazy
sun would climb the high eastern hill, when Brother Duzett's drums
rattled and rolled their startling reveille, echoing from peak to peak.
In a moment, the quick bustle of camp life broke the stillness of dawn,
and the neigh of the tethered horses, and the low of the oxen in the
meadow, added a note of surprised domesticity to that wild scene. Then,
before these sounds were fairly through echoing and re-echoing across
the silver sheeted lake, two rounds from Uncle Dimick Huntington's
cannon ware answered by two others across the vale fired from Elisha
Everett's fieldpiece. The booming volleys were swept from crag to crag,
and went rolling and tumbling in wild confusion down the canyon's
winding glens, and were just losing themselves in silence, when the
three brass bands united in one great glowing tribute to liberty, in
the entrancing melody of the loved "Yankee Doodle." After this even the
children could sleep no longer, but dressed as best they could with
half-frozen fingers in the dim dawn of the snow-cooled air.
Out from tent and wagon-box they poured at eight o'clock, these merry,
happy revellers, filled to the brim with joyous anticipations of all
that the day and the years would bring to them.
As Dian and Ellen met each other, both with cheeks of rosy hue from
their hastened toilet, and ready to go to the bowery for morning
prayers, they heard that shrill call, now muffled by the busy morning
noises--
"Come and kiss yoo papa," and Dian knew that the young avengers were
again hot on the Englishman's trail.
"What's that?" asked Ellen.
Dian explained her midnight adventure, but she asked no question of
Ellen as to her own whereabouts the night before, as she really was
indifferent on that subject. She had known and loved Ellen a good part
of her life, and she did not propose to let a silly thing like John
Steven's diverted attentions come between her and her friend. Dian was
much too sensible for jealousy as a pastime; it might do in real love;
but jealousy in the abstract had never been a part of her character.
Dian was surely sensible.
The girls were that moment joined by Charlie Rose, fresh, dapper, and
full of morning "poesy."
"The stars have left the morning skies
To beam in Ellen's lovely eyes,"
he began, when Dian interrupted saucily, "Well, I'll declare!" then he
finished--
The rose has left the dawn so meek,
To bloom in Dian's beauteous cheek."
"Well, Charlie, you are at least impartial with your ridiculous
compliments," laughed Dian, "but I wish you wouldn't go on about my
blowzy cheek."
"I said beauteous," corrected Charlie.
"Where's Tom Allen?" asked Ellen.
"Oh, he's fishing, as usual. Did you folks have plenty of fish this
morning?" and then Charlie told absurd Munchhausen fish stories till
the girls were convulsed with girlish laughter.
"What became of Boyle, the elegant?" asked Charlie. "Me thinks I see
not his fringed pantaloons, nor his gay, red shirt. Hast seen his
ludship this bright morning?"
There was a wicked echo in the back regions of the Winthrop tent as
Charlie asked this, and a chorus of childish voices piped up, "Come
and kiss yoo papa," and Dian and Ellen were again too overcome with
successive peals of cruel, heartless merriment even to reply to Charlie.
"Dian," called Rachel, from the tent door, "come here a moment. I want
you to find that flat-iron you laid away somewhere."
"Why, Rachel, the bugle has sounded for us to gather for morning
exercises in the bowery. What do you want of the flat-iron?"
"I want the tub, too; Harvey, you carry that tub right down to
the creek this minute, and if I catch you up to any more of your
monkeyshines, I will have your father punish you. Do you hear, sir?"
"Why, Rachel, Rachel," protested Dian, "don't get angry with Harvey up
here. Surely he is not up to mischief in this lovely place?"
"Do you know what he did?" exclaimed his mother, more inclined to laugh
after all than to scold, "he took Henry Boyle's new red shirt out of
his tent and then soused it in the creek and left it soaking there all
night. He dragged it this morning through the black mud of this horrid
valley until you can't tell what it is. Brother Boyle can't get up, I
tell you, till I wash and iron his shirt. I am almost inclined to whip
Harvey myself."
But she refrained; and the two women dragged the shirt out amid
smothered peals of laughter, and sent Harvey to his duty in the crack
juvenile regiment of Rifles, while Dian herself was not unwilling to be
urged by Rachel to go on with Ellen to the exercises, permitting her
kind-hearted sister-in-law to prepare the shirt for future service.
And still there floated at mysterious intervals that jeering cry about
the tent of the fallen hero, as he lay ruminating within the inner
sanctuary of his own tent on the mischances of fickle fortune.
"Come and kiss yoo papa," wailed the children, as they, too, departed
for the exercises in the bowery.
The scene in the central pavilion was impressive! After prayers had
been offered by Apostle Amasa Lyman, the great silken flag, taken
down through the dewy shades of night, was unfurled from the tallest
tree in the vicinity, by the youthful John Smith, son of the murdered
patriarch, and once more the bands broke into crashing melody, and
again the cannon roared across the affrighted silence, while the people
shouted as the emblem of Liberty was unfurled to the morning breeze.
The regiments of the Utah militia which had been drawn up in rigid
lines before the central pavilion, now saluted the Governor of the
Territory, Brigham Young, and then began a series of brilliant
evolutions. The marching and counter-marching of this tried and trusty
band of mountaineer soldiers made a gallant display which was eminently
fitting to time and scene, in its evidence of loyal devotion to
freedom's rights.
"Dian," whispered Ellen, as the two sat watching the maneuvers, "don't
you just love a soldier? The sight of those brass buttons is just
thrilling to me."
Dian's answer was more moderate, but she would have been less than
human if she had not been thrilled by the sight of the so-called "Hope
of Israel," the Juvenile Rifle Company which was now led out by the
handsome young son of the President himself, John W. Young; for all
those youngsters were less than sixteen years old. Her nephew, Harvey
Winthrop, was in that gay company, as she noted triumphantly. And their
marching and counter-marching, their saluting and drilling was a sight
to touch the most sluggish heart into warmth of admiration.
"Oh, Dian, isn't that the cutest thing you ever saw in your life?"
again asked happy Ellen, as they watched the youthful soldiers finally
trot off to the silence of the trees beyond.
"Let us go, Dian, now that the military exercises are over. I have just
been longing to climb those peaks, and see the lakes above us. Come
quick; let us go now," and the restless girl pulled at her friend's
sleeve.
"Why, dear, you must be one of the reckless spirits the President
was talking about last night. We ought to stay and listen to all the
program in the Bowery. Let us go with the crowd and not sneak off
alone."
But Ellen could not wait, so eager were her feet to press the forbidden
slopes of the hills above. She longed to fly, so vital were her pulses.
The girls compromised as usual and finally walked over to the swings
on the north side of the lake, and both swung themselves into happy
weariness in half an hour's time.
"Where are the boys?" asked Willie Howe, as the two girls strolled
about.
"John is doing guard duty; Charlie is down the canyon with the horses;
Tom declares he will bring us a whole wheelbarrow of fish for dinner,
so I suppose he is somewhere on the lakes fishing."
"And where is Henry Boyle?"
At that Dian remembered his plight and her ready laughter bubbled up to
eyes and lips. She told the shirt story midst peals of wicked laughter.
Youth is so cruel!