MORNING: “SOME IN RAGS AND SOME IN TAGS AND SOME IN VELVET GOWNS”
The bright sun of circus-day shone into Harkless’s
window, and he awoke to find himself smiling.
For a little while he lay content, drowsily wondering
why he smiled, only knowing that there was something
new. It was thus, as a boy, he had wakened on
his birthday mornings, or on Christmas, or on the
Fourth of July, drifting happily out of pleasant dreams
into the consciousness of long-awaited delights that
had come true, yet lying only half-awake in a cheerful
borderland, leaving happiness undefined.
The morning breeze was fluttering at his window blind;
a honeysuckle vine tapped lightly on the pane.
Birds were trilling, warbling, whistling. From
the street came the rumbling of wagons, merry cries
of greeting, and the barking of dogs. What was
it made him feel so young and strong and light-hearted?
The breeze brought him the smell of June roses, fresh
and sweet with dew, and then he knew why he had come
smiling from his dreams. He would go a holiday-making.
With that he leaped out of bed, and shouted loudly:
“Zen! Hello, Xenophon!”
In answer, an ancient, very black darky put his head
in at the door, his warped and wrinkled visage showing
under his grizzled hair like charred paper in a fall
of pine ashes. He said: “Good-mawn’,
suh. Yessuh. Hit’s done pump’
full. Good-mawn’, suh.”
A few moments later, the colored man, seated on the
front steps of the cottage, heard a mighty splashing
within, while the rafters rang with stentorian song:
“He promised to buy me a bunch
o’ blue ribbon,
He promised to buy me a bunch o’ blue
ribbon,
He promised to buy me a bunch o’ blue
ribbon,
To
tie up my bonny brown hair
“Oh dear! What can the
matter be?
Oh dear! What can the matter be?
Oh dear! What can the matter be?
Johnnie’s
so long at the Fair!”
At the sound of this complaint, delivered in a manly
voice, the listener’s jaw dropped, and his mouth
opened and stayed open. “Him!” he
muttered, faintly. “Singin’!”
“Well, the old Triangle knew
the music of our tread;
How the peaceful Seminole would tremble in his
bed!”
sang the editor. “I dunno huccome it,”
exclaimed the old man, “an’ dat ain’
hyer ner dar; but, bless Gawd! de young man’
happy!” A thought struck him suddenly, and he
scratched his head. “Maybe he goin’
away,” he said, querulously. “What
become o’ ole Zen?” The splashing ceased,
but not the voice, which struck into a noble marching
chorus. “Oh, my Lawd,” said the colored
man, “I pray you listen at dat!”
“Soldiers marching
up the street,
They keep the time;
They look sublime!
Hear them play Die Wacht am Rhein!
They call them Schneider’s Band.
Tra la la la, la!”
