Rena I. Halsey

Nathalie was sure that she would never forget those tense, anxious moments as she stared with strained eyes, trying to catch the first glimpse of the coming show, while listening with alert ears to the oncoming tread of many feet, the noise and bustle of moving equipages, and the buzz and hum from the excited voices of the paraders and the onlookers. High above the tumult floated snatches of patriotic song, as sung by the Liberty Girls, and the loud outbursts of applause from the villagers, who lined the street.

Ah, there it was! The girl’s heart leaped in wild bounds, she bent forward eagerly, and then she was sitting with nervously clasped hands, gazing with wide-open eyes at the slowly passing floats of the Liberty Pageant. It was heralded by a procession of small maidens costumed as Greek goddesses, who, while moving and swaying rhythmically, and holding festoons of white flowers high above their heads, were singing Thomas Paine’s “Liberty Tree.” As they burst out with the old familiar words:

“In a chariot of light from the regions of day,
The Goddess of Liberty came;”

Nathalie was forcibly reminded of the time when she had last heard that song. Yes, it was almost a year ago, on Mrs. Van Vorst’s lawn, when the Girl Pioneers had held their little playlet of “Liberty Banners.”

But her thoughts were again on the series of living pictures, and she smiled with her neighbors at the two small boys, one gowned as a doctor of the law, and the other as a brass-buttoned, blue-coated guardian of the peace, mounted on small horses caparisoned in white, whose trappings were marked in gold with the words “Law” and “Order.” As the diminutive doctor removed a pen from behind his ear, and peered learnedly through his goggles at a ponderous volume of law resting on a rack in front of him, while his companion on the neighboring flower-bedecked steed flourished a somewhat formidable-looking club, in token of the duties of his office, roars of laughter broke from the spectators.

But as their eyes wandered on to the snowy chariot, where the Spirit of Liberty stood with outstretched hands, one holding a branch of evergreen, and the other a lighted torch, their laughter ceased, and a strange hush stilled their noisy clamor. For this beautiful maiden in loosely flowing garments, with eyes as bright and shining as the starry chaplet that wreathed her golden, unbound hair, was the little hunchback of the big gray house, Nita Van Vorst!

High above the “angel face,” as Nathalie heard some one designate the girl’s countenance, beautiful in its inspiration of happiness and patriotism—her deformity hidden by her white wings—was a large banner inscribed with the words:

“Enter at Freedom’s porch,^[1]
For you I lift my torch,
For you my coronet
Is rayed with stars
My name is Liberty,
My throne is Law.”

Guarding the Spirit of Liberty, while holding the streamers that floated from the banners above, were three more white-robed figures, representing the three great principles for which the world was striving. The unbound tresses of each were banded with white, and the first bore the word, “Democracy,” the girl holding a white dove on her hand. The second was Humanity,—who cuddled a little Belgian refugee in her arms; and the third was Justice, who held aloft a pair of scales.

Nathalie’s eyes radiated with gladness as she heard her neighbors voice their commendations in praises of the snowy chariot, the symbol of freedom, man’s divine heritage from God. She began to feel that the many hours that she and Helen had spent in devising and planning the details of this float and its mates, after all, might be appreciated.

The second picture was a marriage scene, a float marked “Virginia, 1607,” and bore the famous words of its well-known orator, “Give me liberty, or give me death.” It was decorated with white flowers in honor of the bride, Pocahontas,—impersonated by a Camp Fire girl in an Indian deerskin robe wondrously embroidered, and gay with many-colored beads,—who stood by the flower-decked pulpit amid a bower of green, being united in the holy bands of matrimony to John Rolfe.

The pose of the Indian maiden, the sweet seriousness of her tawny-dyed face and melting black eyes, the dignified pose of the Virginia planter, so vividly portrayed the romantic episode of the first American colony, that the many onlookers broke forth into shouts of approval. The quaintly attired figures of the Jamestown settlers in the foreground, and the group of Indian warriors with their war-plumes and dabs of paint were backed by a miniature tower. Some one inquired if it was a monument, much to the young president’s disgust, as she considered it a noble work of art, which had been laboriously built of old bricks by the Girl Pioneers to represent the ruined tower of Jamestown.

Massachusetts was identified by the words, “The Founders of Liberty,” and a simulated boulder, which Blue Robin watched with great trepidation for fear the blithesome Mary Chilton, who stood victorious on this Forefathers’ Rock, in too zealous jubilation would shake it too much. But the sprightly Pilgrim maiden, in gray cape and bonnet—it was the Sport—remembered the perilous foundations, and her scorn was discreetly tempered with caution as she gazed at the somewhat crestfallen John, who stood with one foot on the rock, and the other in a miniature shallop, where the Pilgrim Fathers stood dismally regarding this forerunner of the progressive American girl.

New York’s contribution to the cause of freedom was a float brilliantly rampant with the Stars and Stripes, and a little white flag with a black beaver on it, the State’s emblem. This float, which bore the words, “The Sons of Liberty,” was in commemoration of the brave lovers of freedom on the little isle of Manhattan, who, in February, 1770, raised the first Liberty Pole in America at what is now known as City Hall Park. To be sure, it was cut down twice, but Liberty was afire, and it was finally hooped with iron and set up the third time, this time to stay.

“Liberty Hall,” the name of the home of a one-time governor of New Jersey, was conspicuously seen on the next float. The girls had had some difficulty in getting an appropriate design for this little garden State that could be conveniently staged on a small-sized platform. But they had evidently succeeded, for the quaintly gowned young maiden who acted her rÔle in pantomime was loudly applauded as she flew to an improvised window, only to exhibit wild alarm, and then in frenzied haste scurried to an old-time escritoire. Here she rummaged a moment or so, and then extracted a bundle of letters, which she hurriedly secreted behind a loosened brick beside a simulated fireplace. In explanation of this silent drama Nathalie told that the young girl was Susannah, the daughter of William Livingston, the governor, who, when she saw the redcoats marching towards the house in her father’s absence, quickly remembered his valuable papers and hid them for safety.

Five girls in homespun gowns, sewing on a United States flag, composed the New Hampshire float, which flew the State emblem, with its motto of Liberty inscribed on its side. The flag-makers, out of their best silk gowns, were making, in accordance with the description in the resolution just passed by Congress, June 14, 1777, the first Stars and Stripes that floated from the Ranger, to which Captain Paul Jones had just been commissioned, and which became known as “the unconquered and unstricken flag.”

The Connecticut float bore the words, “The Liberty Charter,” while a Liberty Girl, in a good impersonation of Ruth Wyllis, stood by a ladder resting against a somewhat strange simulation of the Charter Oak, handing the supposed charter to the redoubtable Captain Wadsworth, who quickly secreted it in the hollow of the tree.

Terra Marie, the land of Mary, not only blazoned the words, “The Rights of Liberty,” but portrayed Margaret Brent, the first woman suffragist, as she stood before the Maryland Assembly and pleaded with those worthies, with masculine energy, for her right to a say in the affairs of the little State, the State noted for its Toleration Act of 1649. Surely the good woman, as the representative of the deceased Governor Calvert, who had given his all to her with the words, “Take all, and give all,” had a right to demand that she be heard.

The “Daughters of Liberty” made a brilliant showing in big letters on the little Rhody float, to honor the seventeen young girls who, in 1766, met at the home of good old Deacon Bowen, in Providence, and not only voiced their disapproval of the Colonies’ tax on tea and on cloth manufactured in England, but formed the first patriotic organization known in America. It was the same inspiration of liberty that impelled their emulators to adopt their name, and to plan and push through the demonstration of which every one was so proud. As these Liberty maidens sat and spun at their looms, or whetted their distaffs on the float before the gaping crowd, they were guarded by two impersonations,—one the father of toleration, Roger Williams, who looked benignantly down upon these devotees of freedom, and the other, America’s first club-woman, the learned and martyred Anne Hutchinson.

Ah, but who is this riding astride a horse of sable blackness, curveting and prancing with chafing irritation at the tightened rein of its rider, who

Of course there were a few who were not familiar with this little incident in the history of Delaware, and how the aforesaid Rodney, a member of the Continental Congress, spurred his horse from Dover to Philadelphia, a distance of eighty-one miles, to reach Independence Hall before night, in order to cast the vote of Delaware for freedom and independence. It was, indeed, a great ride, and the townspeople must have appreciated it, for the horse and rider were heartily cheered as they read the words on the banner: “It is Liberty’s stress; it is Freedom’s need.”

North Carolina proved most interesting, with the inscription, “The First Liberty Bell of America,” on a big hand-bell resting in the center of the float. The inscription and the bell aroused so much curiosity as to why it should take precedence of the old Liberty Bell at Philadelphia, that Nathalie was called upon by a group of friends sitting near, to explain that it really was the first Liberty Bell used in the Thirteen Colonies, having sounded its peal for liberty when rung by the patriots of that State in 1771.

“These patriots,” went on the young Liberty Girl, “were the farmers and yeomanry of that State, who, in a vigorous protest against the tyrannous acts, misrule, and extortion during the administration of Governor Tryon, banded themselves into a company known as the Regulators. This bell was used to call them together in their struggle to maintain the rights of the people. These Regulators were not only hounded, persecuted, and sometimes executed as if they were rebels, but many of their number were killed at the battle of the Alamance,—so named because it took place on a field near that beautiful river,—when called upon to defend themselves, when fired upon by the governor and a company of the king’s troops. This battle has been called by some the first battle of the Revolution,” continued the young girl, “and really inspired the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, the forerunner of the noted Declaration signed at Philadelphia. Some historians claim that ‘God made the flower of freedom grow out of the turf that covered these men’s graves.’” After this little story, the inscription,

on the float was eagerly read and doubly appreciated. By the bell stood a tiny maid in the long skirt of the days of colonial childhood, wearing a long white apron. With the crossed kerchief and two bright eyes peeping from beneath the golden curls that strayed from below the little one’s Puritan cap, she looked so sweet and demure that murmurs of admiration surged through the crowd, as they recognized that this diminutive lady represented the first white child born in America, little Virginia Dare.

Perhaps only a few knew that the white fawn that she was holding by her side featured the legend of the white doe that was said to haunt the isle of Roanoke for many years after the return of John White, who found only the word Croatan to tell him that his dear little granddaughter had disappeared, never to be found. The legend was so suggestive of the romance of North Carolina that the girls could not forbear giving it prominence on the float. They had had some trouble to find a white doe, but they had succeeded, and as Nathalie gazed at it she was again reminded of how the legend told that it used to stand mournfully gazing out to sea, on a hill of the little isle. The Indians, tradition asserted, had failed to kill it, until one day it was shot and killed by a silver bullet from the hand of an Indian chieftain, who claimed that the bullet had been given to him by Queen Elizabeth to kill witches, when a captive in England. As the beautiful doe sank upon the green sward and expired it was said to have murmured, “Virginia Dare! Virginia Dare!”

South Carolina, glaringly conspicuous with red and blue bunting, was marked “Liberty” in honor of one of the most famous flags used in the Revolutionary War. It was an ensign of blue with a white crescent in one corner, said to have been designed by Colonel Moultrie, of Carolina fame, and was declared to have been the first flag raised for liberty in the South.

In the center of the float a miniature trench had been raised, on the parapet of which stood a young lad waving this little blue flag, in honor of that gallant hero, Sergeant Jasper, who, when the flag was shot down during the bombardment of Fort Moultrie, June 28, 1776, leaped fearlessly to the top of the ramparts, received the colors, and held them in his hand until another staff was found.

This little quotation was an apt one, from the Poet Whittier, but it was not necessary to make known to those gazing at it, that it stood for the strongest and proudest of the sisterhood of States, the home of freemen and heroes, of Robert Morris, Dr. Franklin and our good brother, William Penn. This promoter of tolerance, independence, and the equal rights of men was fittingly portrayed by a Boy Scout. Benignant of face, mild of eye, with long hair falling from beneath his broad-brimmed hat, this friend of the friendless stood surrounded by a group of Indian warriors, resplendent in all the trappings of their tribes, making one of the numerous peace treaties.

But the Georgia float, buried in white to represent bolls of cotton, in memory of Eli Whitney, aroused such loud and long cries of admiration that Nathalie feared that after her hard labor the other floats had not received their due mead of appreciation. But no, it was the rousing melody of “Marching through Georgia,” with its telling lines of,

and the inspiration that always comes to every Northern heart when they think of that gallant Son of Liberty, Sherman, and his triumphant march to the sea, that had created the sudden tumult.

The few men in regimentals of the Union army,—in real life, boys in brown from Camp Mills,—who were playing fifes and bugles on the float, and the straggling darkies in the rear, who were shouting with verve and gusto, as they followed in the wake of “Massa Sherman,” intensified the appeal.

Ah, but now comes another edition of Liberty; this time no less a personage than Lillie Bell, who, in the old costume worn over a year ago on the lawn of the big gray house, was standing on a chariot, an old farm wagon ablaze with the colors of Freedom, driven by four soldiers, representing France, England, Belgium, and America. The young goddess with sad and tragic eyes shining from beneath her helmet, gazed straight before her as she held a drawn sword clasped closely to her breast, in a graceful pose beneath the colors of the Allies floating gayly above her head.

Yes, there was no doubt, as Helen had often said, Lillie was born for stellar rÔles, for somehow she had the happy faculty of always falling into the desired attitude and mood of the part she was to portray. A sudden silence gripped the line of people standing on the curb, as they saw this familiar figure of Liberty, in a new and strange rÔle. On a beflagged chair of state good old Uncle Sam was seated, driving America’s symbol of Freedom with reins of roses. Yes, roses to typify that the good protector of the United States’ joys and interests was on the job,—as the Sport expressed it,—but doing it with the silken reins of love.

In the rear of this float a very small one appeared, but it was large enough to display a cannon and a pile of cannon-balls, and also a member of the United States Marines’ crack quartet of machine-gunners. As he was the genuine article, as one of the girls declared,—being one of the town’s boys home on a leave of absence, and held a Lewis gun, he was received with wild cheers. A Jackie was perched on what was supposed to be a conning-tower, apparently on the watch for a submarine, while another soldier of the seas was ramming an old cannon, which created much laughter.

It wasn’t much of a naval display, Nathalie thought regretfully, but it was the best they could do with their poor equipment, for these Daughters of Freedom were resolved to give due honor to these brave guardians of the sea.

A contingent of husky young chaps from Camp Mills were lionized as soon as their khaki-clad figures were sighted on the next float, which was marked, “Liberty Boys.” A somewhat crude representation of a trench, piled with sand-bags, with a few boys in tin hats, with guns in their hands, clambering over it, represented to the spectators an “Over the Top” scene. In the rear of the trench a few soldiers were grouped around a camp-fire, presumably in a rest billet, having “eats.” Every moment or so a soldier on this float would break forth into some war-song, which was quickly taken up by his comrades, and which helped to make the scene very realistic.

A small float with the Red Cross insignia, bearing the words, “The Cross of Liberty,” with a few nurses seated around a table making bandages, now appeared. A white cot, with a soldier boy in it, suddenly silenced the cheers,—it was so suggestive of what every heart held in silent dread and fear, ever since the United States had buckled to the fray.

But the sudden quiet was broken as the next, and last, float hove in sight. It was so artistically gotten up as a Liberty Garden, and represented so much freshness and beauty with its Liberty Girls, each one dressed to represent either a fruit or a vegetable, that it was wildly cheered. Masses of fruit piled up here and there peeped from bowers of green leaves, or hung in festoons across the float. Potatoes, green and red peppers, onions, cucumbers, and many other products of the garden were lavishly in evidence. Carol, the Tike, was arrayed as a pumpkin, a row of yellow leaves standing above a bunch of green ones. Carrots, cucumbers, turnips, even beans, beets, and strawberries were ingeniously represented by crÊpe paper.

But the love of every heart were the Morrow twins, standing in the front of the float in blue overalls, wide-brimmed hats, and blue shirts, with rakes and hoes in their hands, as farmerettes, each one vigorously waving a flag. This float completed the series of pictures that Nathalie now felt had been duly admired, and she smiled happily at the many plaudits that again burst forth. But when the farmerettes and these living representations of fruits and vegetables broke into^[4]

it captured every heart present, and such prolonged applause rent the air that Nathalie was duly satisfied.

As she turned to leave the grand-stand it seemed to the tired girl as if every one in town stopped to shake hands, and to congratulate her on the huge success of the Liberty Pageant. When she finally arrived home, it was some hours before she reached her couch, for she found the family unduly excited, all eagerly talking; no, not about the pageant, but about a rather strange letter that had been received by Mrs. Page that afternoon.