It is summer, and the flickering
shadows of forest-leaves dapple the roof of the little porch, whose door
stands wide, and shows, hanging on either hand, rows of straw hats and
bonnets, that look as if they had done good service. As you pass the open
windows, you hear whole platoons of high-pitched voices discharging words
of two or three syllables with wonderful precision and unanimity. Then
there is a pause, and the voice of the officer in command is heard
reproving some raw recruit whose vocal musket hung fire. Then the drill
of the small infantry begins anew, but pauses again because some
urchin--who agrees with Voltaire that the superfluous is a very necessary
thing--insists on spelling "subtraction" with an _s_ too much.
If you had the good fortune to be born and bred in the Bay State, your
mind is thronged with half-sad, half-humorous recollections. The a-b abs
of little voices long since hushed in the mould, or ringing now in the
pulpit, at the bar, or in the Senate-chamber, come back to the ear of
memory. You remember the high stool on which culprits used to be elevated
with the tall paper fool's-cap on their heads, blushing to the ears; and
you think with wonder how you have seen them since as men climbing the
world's penance-stools of ambition without a blush, and gladly giving
everything for life's caps and bells.
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