In Newry, on the glorious Fourth of July, the Proud Bird of Freedom
wears a red shirt, a shield hat, and carries a speaking-trumpet
clutched under one wing. From the court-house--Newry is the county's
shire town--across to the post-office is stretched the well-worn
banner:
WELCOME TO THE COUNTY'S
BRAVE FIRE-LADDIES
That banner pitches the key for Independence Day in Newry. The shire
patriotically jangles her half-dozen bells in the steeples at
daylight in honor of Liberty, and then gives Liberty a stick of candy
and a bag of peanuts, and tells her to sit in the shade and keep her
eye out sharp for the crowding events of the annual firemen's muster.
This may be a cavalier way of treating Liberty, but perhaps Liberty
enjoys it better than being kept on her feet all day, listening to
speeches and having her ear-drums split by cannon. Who knows? At all
events, Newry's programme certainly suits the firemen of the county,
from Smyrna in the north to Carthage in the south. And the firemen
of the county and their women are the ones who do their shopping in
Newry! Liberty was never known to buy as much as a ribbon for her
kimono there.
So it's the annual firemen's muster for Newry's Fourth! Red shirts
in the forenoon parade, red language at the afternoon tub-trials,
red fire in the evening till the last cheer is yawped.
So it was on the day of which this truthful chronicle treats.
Court Street, at ten, ante-meridian, was banked with eager faces.
Band music, muffled and mellow, away off somewhere where the parade
was forming! Small boys whiling away the tedium of waiting with
snap-crackers. Country teams loaded to the edges, and with little
Johnny scooched on a cricket in front, hustling down the line of
parade to find a nook. Anxious parents scuttling from side to side
of the street, dragging red-faced offspring with the same haste and
uncertainty hens display to get on the other side of the road--having
no especial object in changing, except to change. Chatter of voices,
hailings of old friends who signified delighted surprise by
profanity and affectionate abuse. Everlasting wailings of penny
squawkers!