THEY HOIST THE FLAG
WHEN the Highland accommodation stopped for water, about a week after
Tommy had received the supplies which he had requested, the express
messenger kicked off a long bundle marked “Tent, West Silver Creek
Bridge. (D. H.)”
When the train pulled out a couple of Mr. Collins’s men climbed up the
water tank. After sighting and measuring for a while the men came down
and asked: “Where’s your flag?”
“We aint go’ no flag,” said the pump boy.
“Well, we’ve been sent here to put up a flag. What’s in that bundle?”
“Tent!” yelled Tommy, after examining the tag. “Hully smoke, Jack,
we’re goin’ t’ have a tent,” cried he, enthusiastically, as he began to
cut the twine about the bundle. Tommy’s eyes widened when he shook the
bundle open and found a big silk banner wearing the stars and stripes.
“D’ flag! d’ flag, Jack!” he cried excitedly, as he threw the little
watchman down and began to roll him up in the silk that lay upon the
grass.
The company storekeeper had run a blue pencil through the flag in
Tommy’s requisition, and then headed a subscription to buy what the
boy wanted. Every trainman on the division, agents, operators, section
men--in fact, all who heard of the thing, were eager to contribute, so
that the best and biggest flag that could be bought and used in such
a place, took less than half the money. The balance was spent for red
fire and noise, so that the boys at the bridge, who never knew what it
was to have a holiday--who knew it was Sunday once a week because the
Highland local didn’t run--could amuse themselves and the people of
Lick Skillet without losing any time.
The following day was the Fourth, and the first train up from St. Louis
brought the fireworks. It was a great day; the biggest in the history
of the settlement, and Tommy McGuire, who had been stoned and chased,
freckled Tommy, “Onry Tommy,” whom the priest called “incourageable,”
who had been voted a thoroughly worthless boy by all the females in
the community--save his mother and little Mary--was easily the captain.
And what pleased the agent, Tommy’s champion, who had driven down to
the Skillet to see the show, was the fact that Tommy wore his honors
easily. There was nothing of the swaggerer about him. To be sure, he
awed the other boys, especially the farmer boys from a little way back,
and he held the eyes of all the little girls, who envied Mary Connor,
who was ever near the master of ceremonies, partly because she felt a
sort of security in his company and partly from force of habit, for
they were constant companions now. This fact did not escape the notice
of the agent. It was a good sign, he said, to see a boy throwing a line
out early in life.
Once, when the big flag had become entangled about the pole, Tommy ran
up the pump ladder and over the roof of the tank to loosen it. Then,
to save time, he slid down a long rope that reached from the roof to
within ten feet of the ground. Every one was watching the boy, and when
he dropped Mary put her hands to her eyes and said, “Oh!” and then she
blushed and all the other girls laughed.
The station agent, who, instead of going to St. Louis to celebrate, had
complimented the community by his presence, was, by common consent,
the guest of honor. The section men brought a push-car load of lumber
and built a big table, upon which the Widow Connor and Mrs. McGuire
heaped the best products of their well-worked gardens. There was spring
chicken, butter, and buttermilk. The agent stood at the head of the
table, Tommy at his right, and little Mary, by a mere accident, at his
left. In addition to keeping one eye on the agent and the other on
Mary, Tommy looked out for every one. He was especially solicitous for
Mrs. Dutton, who had given him the name of “Onry” Tommy, and saw that
her plate was kept loaded. He even expressed a regret that the priest
could not be there “to git a square once in his life.”
By the middle of the afternoon the news of the “celebration” at the
bridge had filtered out among the farmers and reached up to St. Jacobs
and down to Troy, and those who had made no arrangements to enjoy the
Fourth, came to the water tank that evening to see the fireworks. Tommy
had caused the section men to lay boards along one side of the bridge,
and when it was dark, having the multitude, to the number of two or
three hundred souls, including “Anderson’s nigger,” stationed at a
distance, he stood upon the bridge and burned money. If he had dazzled
the youth of the community, male and female, by day, he awed them at
night. Standing there on the bridge in a blaze of glory, with Mary by
his side, making it thunder and lightning, sending sizzling sky-rockets
over the tops of tall trees, shooting burning bullets into the blue
above, Tommy McGuire was easily the emperor of Lick Skillet, grand,
picturesque, and awful.