Mr. Short took great interest in the plans and preparations for
celebrating the Fourth, and was quite anxious that “the captain’s young
folks” should have their every wish in regard to them satisfied.
Also he thought it would be a fine thing to give them an agreeable
surprise. He had a private consultation with Captain Raymond, and one
result was that Max and Lulu were unexpectedly roused from sleep at
sunrise of the important day by the firing of cannon and the ringing of
all the church bells, while at the same moment a flag was flung to the
breeze from every public building.
“Oh, it’s the Fourth, the glorious Fourth!” cried Lulu, springing out
of bed and running to her window. “It’s a lovely day, too; and there
are flags flying. Papa,” she called, “is it too early for me to get up?”
“No,” he answered, “not if you wish to; Max and I are going to rise
now. You may close your door and dress yourself for the day.”
She made haste with her toilet, arraying herself in white, which she
considered the most suitable thing for the “glorious Fourth,” and
adding one of her badges to her adornment.
Her father smiled approval when she came to him for the usual
good-morning caress.
“My little girl looks sweet and pure in papa’s partial eyes,” he said.
“It’s nice to have you look at me with that kind of eyes, you dear
papa,” she returned, giving him a vigorous hug, and laughing merrily.
“I think it’s with that kind of eyes papa looks at all his children,”
remarked Max, “and I believe it is for our happiness and his, too.”
“Very true, my son,” rejoined the captain.
Lulu was full of pleasurable excitement. “Papa, do you know if all the
things you have sent for have come?” she asked.
“I think it likely the last of them came on the midnight train, which
brings the express,” he answered. “I will make inquiry after breakfast.
Now try to forget these matters for a little, while we have our reading
and prayer.”
She sobered down at that, and earnestly tried to give her thoughts to
the teachings of the portion of Scripture her father read, and to join
with her heart in the prayer that followed.
That duty attended to, and the breakfast bell not having rung yet, they
repaired to the front porch to wait for it.
There seemed an unusual stir in the town, people passing to and fro,
early though it was, and fire-crackers going off here and there.
“You seem to have stirred up the patriotism of the people here,
Captain,” Mr. Short said laughingly, as he came in at the gate and up
the path to the porch steps. “Good-morning, sir. Good-morning, young
folks. We are favored with as good weather as one could ask for, and
your packages all arrived by last night’s train; so that everything
looks propitious for your celebration, so far. I had the things taken
directly to the school-house, and doubtless they will be unpacked in
good season.”
The captain said “Thank you,” and invited Mr. Short to walk in and take
breakfast with them. The bell rang at the moment, and the invitation
was accepted.
“You are honoring the day, I see, Miss Lulu,” remarked Mr. Short, with
a smiling glance at her attire.
“Oh, yes,” she said, looking down at her badge, “I want everybody to
know that I’m a patriotic American girl. I made this badge and a whole
boxful beside for the school children to wear.
“Papa, mayn’t I carry them to the schoolhouse myself, after breakfast,
and help the teacher fasten them on?”
“You may go, and I’ll go with you,” he said; “and if the children fancy
wearing them, and the teacher will accept our services, we will do as
you propose.”
“I’ll be bound the children won’t object, but will be delighted with
the gift of the pretty bunch of ribbons, whether they have, or have
not, any patriotism in their make-up,” laughed Mr. Short.
“By the way, Captain, I met Riggs on the street as I came here, and he
informed me that he would be present at the oration, reading of the
Declaration, and so forth, and that he hoped the people would turn out
‘copiously.’ He’s rather original in the use of words.”
“So I have discovered,” was the captain’s quiet reply.
“Has he told you of his plans for improving his house?” asked Mr.
Short, with a humorous look.
“Yes, and how he obtained his wealth in spite of entire lack of
education.”
“It was a lucky find, and he’s one of the richest men of the town; but
if he had education he would get twice the satisfaction out of his
wealth that he does as it is; at least, I think so.”
“And I do not doubt that you are right,” assented Captain Raymond.
“Well, Miss Lulu, how many pounds of fire-crackers do you expect to set
off to-day?” asked Mr. Short. “So patriotic a young lady will hardly
be satisfied with less than two or three, I suppose.”
“Indeed, sir, I do not expect to fire one,” she returned gaily. “Papa
has promised me something else in place of them; I don’t know yet what
it is, but as he says I will enjoy it more I’m quite sure I shall.”
“Now, I shouldn’t wonder if I could guess what it is,” returned Mr.
Short with a twinkle in his eye.
“Perhaps so, sir; but I don’t want to be told till papa’s time for
telling me comes, or by anybody but him.”
“Good girl; uncommonly loyal and obedient,” he said laughingly.
“No, sir, you are mistaken in thinking me that,” she said, with
heightened color; “I’m naturally very wilful, so that papa has had any
amount of trouble to teach me to obey.”
“But the lesson has been pretty thoroughly learned,” said her father
kindly, Mr. Short adding, “I’m sure of it; and she is certainly honest
and frank.”
The school children were delighted with the badges, the teacher glad of
Lulu’s help in pinning them on, and of the gentlemen’s assistance in
forming her procession. All were on their best behavior, and everything
went prosperously with the celebration.
The captain and his children following in the wake of the procession,
returned to the schoolroom to see and assist in the distribution of the
candies, cakes, and fruits. The delight and gratitude of the recipients
was a pretty and pleasant thing to behold.
By the time that was over the Raymond’s dinner hour had arrived, and
they hastened to their boarding-house.
As they left the table the captain caught an inquiring look from Lulu.
“Yes, child, you shall know now; you have waited very patiently,” he
said. “I am going to teach you how to handle a pistol and shoot at a
mark.”
“Oh, good, good!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands in delight. “I
always did want to know how to shoot, but I didn’t suppose you’d ever
let me touch a pistol or gun, papa.”
“I won’t, except when I’m close beside you,” he said, “at least, not
for a long time to come. But I am going to teach you, because there
may be times in a woman’s life when such knowledge and skill may be of
great value to her.”
“Max will take part, too, won’t he?” she asked.
“Yes, certainly; it is even more important for him to know how to use
fire-arms than for you. Mr. Short will join in the sport, too, and you
may invite Marian to do so also, if you choose.”
“Oh, thank you, papa! I will,” she said, running back to the room they
had just left, while her father went on to his.
Marian was clearing the table as Lulu came rushing in, half breathless
with haste and excitement.
“O Marian,” she said, “papa is going to teach me to use a pistol; to
shoot at a mark; and he told me I might ask you if you would like to
learn too. Would you?”
“Thank you, yes; it’s just what I’ve been longing to learn, for if the
United States Government can’t, or won’t, protect me from the Mormons,
I want to know how to protect myself,” returned the girl, her eyes
flashing: “helpless women are their victims, but I don’t mean to be a
helpless one. I’ll learn, if your father will teach me; then I’ll get a
pistol of my own and use it, too, if I have occasion.”
“Marian, what makes you so fierce at them?” asked Lulu in surprise. “Is
it because they persuaded your father to be a Mormon and leave his own
country?”
“Yes; and because they force women to marry against their will: they
force them into sin, making them marry horrid creatures (calling
themselves men, but not worthy of the name) that already have wives;
sometimes a number of them.
“And if a woman dares resist they say she is weakening in the
faith—supposing she is called a Mormon—and according to their wicked,
fiendish, blood atonement doctrine she must be put to death; and so
they murder her in the name of religion.
“I know of one poor creature that ran away from her husband to escape
that dreadful fate; for he told her they thought she was weakening in
the faith and that he was to kill her. Every night he hung a dagger at
the head of her bed, and he told her that some night she would hear a
tap at the window at midnight, and that would be a signal for him to
stab her to death with that dagger.
“Now do you wonder I think it would be well for me to have a pistol and
know how to use it?”
“No, indeed!” exclaimed Lulu. “I’m sure I should in your place; and
I’m dreadfully ashamed that my government doesn’t protect you so well
that no one would dare do such things to you or to any woman or girl,
or anybody. It’s just awful! I shall tell papa about it, and ask him if
something can’t be done. I think he’ll find a way; and I can tell you,
if he sets out to do a thing it’s pretty sure to be done.”
“You have great confidence in him,” Marian returned, with a sad sort of
smile. “Ah, you’re very fortunate, Miss Lu, to have such a father.”
“Don’t I know it?” replied Lulu, exultantly. “Max and Gracie and I
think he’s just the best man and kindest father that ever lived. He
knows all about fire-arms, too, and if anybody can teach us how to use
them he can.”
“When do we take the lesson, Miss Lu?” inquired Marian.
“I suppose in a few minutes, but you can come just when you are ready.
I must run back now and tell papa that you will join us.”
She was full of what Marian had just told her of Mormon doings, and at
once repeated it all to her father, winding up with “Oh, papa, isn’t it
dreadful? Can’t something be done to put a stop to such wicked, cruel
doings? I do think it’s a perfect disgrace that such deeds can be done
in our country.”
“And I quite agree with you,” he sighed, “and am resolved to exert
myself to the utmost to put a stop to the commission of such crimes in
the name of religion.
“Talk of the right of Mormon _men_ to civil and religious liberty,” he
went on, rather thinking aloud than speaking to her, “what has become
of the _woman’s_ right to the same, if they are to be permitted to
murder her when she ceases to believe as they do, or to conform her
conduct to the will of their hierarchy? Oh, it is monstrous, monstrous,
that this thing called Mormonism has been allowed to grow to its
present proportions!”
“Can’t you put a stop to it, papa?” she asked.
“_I_, child? _I_ put a stop to it?” he returned, smiling slightly with
amusement. “You may well believe that if I had the power I would need
no urging to exercise it.”
“I’m sure I wish you had, papa,” said Max. “But as you haven’t, I’m
afraid we may be obliged to fight one of these days to rid the country
of that tyrannical Mormon hierarchy that is aiming to destroy our free
institutions.
“So, Lu, you will do well to make the best of your opportunities to
learn the use of firearms; for there is no knowing how much help we men
and boys may need from the women and girls, if that tug of war comes,”
he added, suddenly dropping the serious tone in which he had begun and
adopting a sportive one.
“You needn’t make fun of us, Max,” she retorted, “for I’m sure women
and girls have sometimes done good service in time of war.”
“I willingly acknowledge it,” he said; “history gives us a number of
such instances. They have carried dispatches at the risk of their
lives, concealed and befriended patriots when pursued by the enemy,
taken care of the sick and wounded soldiers, made many sacrifices for
their country, and in some instances even put on men’s attire and
fought in the ranks. Perhaps that last is what you’d like to do,” he
wound up, laughingly.
“No, I wouldn’t,” she said; “but I think I could and would do the
others if there should be any need for me to.”
“I believe it,” her father said, “because I know you are both
courageous and patriotic. I will give you this when you have learned
how to use it,” he added, taking a small, silver-mounted pistol from
his pocket and putting it into her hands. “It is not loaded, and you
may examine it and learn all you can in that way, while we are waiting
for Mr. Short to come. He will bring the target and set it up in the
shade of those large trees down yonder by the river, where we can shoot
at it without danger of a stray shot striking where it might harm any
one or any thing.”
Mr. Short came presently, the little party repaired to the designated
spot, and the two girls took their first lesson in the use of the
pistol.
At first their bullets went wide of the mark, but after a number of
trials they were able to come pretty near it, and were told they did
very well—all things considered.
The gentlemen, and Max also, took their turns, and the girls watched
them with a feeling akin to envy at their superior skill. Max was a
very respectable shot, Mr. Short still better, while the captain showed
uncommon dexterity.
“As I ought,” he said, laughingly, when complimented on it, “that
being a part of my profession.”
At length they had all had enough of it, and putting up their empty
pistols, returned to the house.
They seated themselves in the shaded porch, and had hardly done so when
they were joined by Mr. Austin and Albert.
“I heard some one say you were target-shooting,” remarked Albert to
Max, “and that the captain hit the center of the mark every time.”
“So he did,” said Max, “but shooting at a target is nothing to papa;
he shoots a bird on the wing. Indeed, I’ve seen him bring down several
of a flock with one shot; also throw up two potatoes and send a bullet
through them both before they reached the ground.”
“I’d like very much to see him do that last,” Albert said, “though I
don’t in the least doubt your word; especially as all the men about
here who have hunted with him say he’s a capital shot.”
At that Max turned to Sandy McAlpine, standing near, and asked if he
could get him two potatoes.
“Cooked or raw?” asked the boy.
“Raw, of course,” laughed Max, “and I’ll hand them back when I’m done
with them. I don’t think they’ll be hurt much for cooking and eating.”
Sandy ran off round the house in the direction of the kitchen, and was
back again almost immediately with the desired articles.
“Papa,” said Max, holding them up to view, “won’t you load your pistol
and show what you can do with it and these?”
“Yes, to please you, my boy,” the captain replied, taking out and
loading the little weapon of warfare that Lulu began already to look
upon as her property. Then taking the offered potatoes he threw them
high in the air, fired, and they came down each with a hole through it.
“Admirably done, Captain!” exclaimed Mr. Austin. “I am considered a
very fair marksman at home, but I could not do that.”
“There is nothing like trying, sir; and probably you excel me in many
another thing,” the captain said pleasantly, as he stepped into the
porch again and resumed his seat.
Then the gentlemen fell into discourse about the event commemorated by
that day’s celebration.
“Your Declaration of Independence handles King George the Third with
much severity,” remarked Mr. Austin, addressing Captain Raymond.
“Yes, sir; the truth is sometimes the severest thing that can be said,”
returned the captain, with a good-humored smile.
“You are right there, sir,” pursued the Englishman. “I cannot say that
I altogether admire the character of that monarch, though he had some
excellent traits, and in reading of the struggle of the colonies for
freedom, my sympathies have always been with them.
“As you are no doubt aware, many of the English of that day sympathized
with them and rejoiced over their success. Fox, Burke, and Chatham had
kept the merits of their cause well before the public mind.”
“For which we owe them a debt of gratitude,” responded the captain; “as
we do John Bright, also, for his outspoken sympathy with our Federal
Government in its efforts to put down the late rebellion,—a time of
sore trial to Union-loving Americans; a time ‘when days were dark and
friends were few,’ and even such men as Gladstone and Guthrie showed
themselves sympathizers with the would-be destroyers of our nation.
“It seemed passing strange to loyal Americans of that day that the
English, who had for many years so constantly reproached our land for
allowing the existence of negro slavery within her borders, should,
when the awful struggle was upon us, side with those whose aim and
purpose it was to found an empire upon the perpetual bondage of
millions of that race—their fellow-men; for, as the Bible tells us, God
‘hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face
of the earth.’”
“I acknowledge the inconsistency,” returned Mr. Austin; “but do not
forget that not _all_ Englishmen were guilty of it. Mr. Bright,
according to your own showing, was a notable exception; and there were
many others.
“Nor is inconsistency a fault confined to Englishmen,” he added, with
a slightly mischievous smile; “the readers of your Declaration, in the
days when negro slavery flourished in this country, must sometimes
have felt uncomfortably conscious of the inconsistency of the two,—the
contradiction between creed and manner of life.”
“No doubt,” acknowledged Captain Raymond, “and thankful I am that the
blot is removed from the scutcheon of my country.”
“‘Slaves cannot breathe in England!’” quoted Albert, with pride and
satisfaction.
“I think they were never deprived of that privilege in America,”
remarked Max soberly, but with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
“Ah, it is not meant in that sense, but Englishmen have never been
guilty of holding men in bondage—in their own land, at least.”
“Haven’t they?” cried Max, pricking up his ears. “Why, then, did your
Alfred the Great make laws respecting the sale of slaves?”
“I had forgotten that for the moment,” returned Albert, reddening: “but
I was thinking only of negro slavery.”
“White slaves, they were to be sure,” admitted Max, in a slightly
sarcastic tone, “but I can’t see that it’s any less cruel and wicked to
enslave white men than darkies.”
“But those were very early times, when men were little better than
savages.”
“Alfred the Great among the rest?”
“Assuredly Alfred the Great was no savage,” returned Albert,
slightly nettled, “but then he was far ahead of his time, and I must
still insist that you go very far back to fasten the reproach of
slave-holding upon Great Britain.”
The two fathers had paused in their discourse to listen to the talk
of the lads, and they seemed to have forgotten the presence of their
elders.
“Well, then, to come down to a later day,” said Max, “don’t you
remember the statute made by Edward the Sixth, that if anybody lived
idly for three days, or was a runaway, he should be taken before two
justices of the peace, branded with a V with a hot iron on the breast,
and given as a slave to the one who brought him for two years; and if
during that time he absented himself for fourteen days he was to be
branded again with a hot iron, on the cheek, with the letter S, and
to be his master’s slave forever! The master might put a ring of iron
round his neck, leg, or arm, too, feed him poorly, and beat, chain, or
otherwise abuse him.
“That white slavery in England was worse than ever negro slavery was in
the United States of America.”
“Well, they who practiced it were the ancestors of Americans as truly
as of those of the present race of Englishmen, that have to bear the
reproach of the slavery of the very early times you first spoke of,”
retorted Albert.
“Maybe so,” said Max; “and I suppose they—the Americans—inherited their
ancestors’ wicked propensities (same as the Englishmen), which may
account for their becoming slaveholders.”
“Well,” Albert said, “you can’t deny that England has always been a foe
to the slave trade, and—”
“Oh! oh! oh! how you forget!” exclaimed Max. “History says that she
began in 1563 to import slaves from Africa into the West Indies; and
the trade was not finally abolished till the spring of 1807. Also,
that by the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713, England obtained a monopoly
of the slave-trade, and engaged to furnish Spanish America with one
hundred and forty-four thousand negroes in thirty-three years; that
a great slave-trading company was formed in England, and Queen Anne
took one-quarter of the stock; that the King of Spain took another
quarter, so that the two sovereigns became the greatest slave-dealers
in Christendom.
“That company brought slaves into the American colonies, and to some
extent slavery was forced upon them by what they then called the
mother country. Queen Anne directed the New York colonial government
to encourage the Royal African Company, and see that the colony was
furnished with plenty of merchantable negroes at moderate rates.
“In the face of such facts, can you deny that England was largely
responsible for the slavery that has proved such a curse to this
country in years past?”
Albert’s countenance wore a discomfited expression, and instead of
replying to Max’s query, he turned to his father with the question, “Is
he correct, sir, in the statements he has been making?”
“I am afraid he is,” replied Mr. Austin, “though some of his facts had
slipped my memory till he brought them up. Europe has no right to twit
America on the subject of slavery or the slave trade; especially now
when negro slavery no longer exists in any part of the Union.”
“And our government abolished the slave trade in the same year that
yours did,” remarked Captain Raymond.
“Yes,” acknowledged Mr. Austin, “but the act for the abolition of
slavery throughout the British colonies was passed thirty years before
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation set the last of the negroes free in
this country.”
“True; but as a set-off against that, remember that the first negroes
brought to Massachusetts (the first in New England) were sent home at
the public expense, by the General Court of the colony.
“That was in 1640. In 1652, Roger Williams and Gorton made a decree
against slavery in Rhode Island; while as late as 1672, white slaves
were sold in England, to be transported to Virginia.”
“Not sold into perpetual slavery, however,” said Mr. Austin.
“No; but for a term of years; still, it can not be denied that they
were slaves for the time being.
“But I give England all credit for her persistent efforts to suppress
the slave-trade since she abolished it in 1807.”
“By the way,” said Mr. Austin, “I have been, since coming into this
community, using every opportunity for studying the Mormon problem, and
it strikes me as a strange thing that such a system of hierarchical
tyranny and outrage has been so long permitted to exist and grow in
this land of boasted freedom—civil and religious.”
“It can not seem stranger, or more inconsistent, to you than to me,
sir,” replied Captain Raymond, flushing with mortification. “I am
exceedingly ashamed of this bar sinister on the scutcheon of my
country; but I trust that vigorous measures are about to be taken for
its expunging.
“Some have defended the let-alone policy on the ground that to restrain
and punish them would be to abridge religious liberty; but I cannot
see it so. We have, in fact, allowed a most tyrannical hierarchy to
persecute even to putting to death, those who, having unfortunately
fallen into its power, attempted an escape from it, or refused to
submit to its dictation in regard to either belief or practice.
“Women have been forcibly detained among them (the self-styled
“Latter-day Saints”) horribly ill-used, and when caught in an attempt
to escape, foully murdered.”
“The perpetrators and abettors of such deeds of darkness mistake
liberty for license; every man or woman has a right to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness—yet only so far as he does not interfere
with the exercise of the same rights by others. The victims of Mormon
tyranny and intolerance have most certainly a right to complain that
they have been deprived of both civil and religious liberty.”
“Very true,” responded Mr. Austin; “and I have learned with
mortification, that the ranks of the Mormons are largely recruited from
Great Britain.”
“Yes; I wish your government were as anxious to keep that class of its
citizens as its sailors, particularly its man-of-war’s-men,” returned
the captain laughingly.
A short discussion as to the comparative amount of freedom enjoyed by
the citizens of the two countries, and the comparative security of life
and property, followed, each gentleman maintaining that his own was the
more favored land.
“Mormonism has for years destroyed in a great measure the personal
liberty of the citizens of this part of your country, where it
flourishes,” remarked Mr. Austin, “and certainly there is neither civil
nor religious liberty enjoyed within the walls of the monasteries and
convents scattered over the whole length and breadth of your land.”
“That is true, only too true!” sighed the captain, “but, as regards
monastic and conventual institutions, as true of your country as of
mine.
“Who can tell what suffering—what martyrdoms, may be endured by the
hapless inmates of those prisons for innocent victims?
“Some will say they should not be interfered with, because the shutting
up of men and women in that way is part of the Romish religion, and
that the victims go into their confinement voluntarily; but it is
certain that some do not do so voluntarily, and that others are
wheedled in by false representations of the life to be led there.
“When they learn by experience what it really is, they often abhor
it and long for the restoration of their freedom, but, alas, find
themselves in the hands of jailors, fastened in by bolts and bars,
and so forced to remain, no matter how unwillingly they are detained.
Where for _them_ is the liberty guaranteed by our Constitution to every
citizen, from the highest to the lowest?”
“It is a great wrong, both here and in Great Britain,” Mr. Austin said.
“One occasionally escapes, and thrills the public mind for a time by
her tale of the horrors of her prison, but they—her tormentors—assert
that she is insane, her tale the fabrication of an unsound mind—and
presently it is all forgotten by the fickle populace; drowned in
thoughts of other matters.
“But what remedy would you propose? the abolition of monasteries and
convents?”
“No; that would savor of interference with their religious liberty;
but I would have them obliged to open their doors to the visits and
inspection of the police at any and all times, without previous
warning; and the fact made certain that every grown person in the
establishment was left entirely free to come and go at his or her
pleasure. While that liberty is not secured to them, it cannot be said
with truth that they are free citizens of a free country.”