sumptuous.

All down and around these two long tables great wreaths of flowers and
leaves, half buried in moss, made a border of bloom, and over them the
light came pouring, while the music sounded nearer and nearer, and the
crowd poured in.

Really, sisters, I can say no more. That whole scene was more than I can
describe. It just sent me home dizzy with bewilderment.

LVIII.

DOWN THE POTOMAC.

Dear sisters:--The Father of our Country was a great man--no doubt on
that subject. He conducted a war on small means and with few men, which
gave us a country that will be a crowning glory of all ages, if we don't
melt down and go to nothing under the hot sunshine of our own
prosperity. He was a great man and a good boy, not because he cut down
the cherry-tree and wouldn't lie about it, for good boys and great men
are not made out of one action, but a harmonious character which
produces many good actions.

Then again, I am not so certain that the action was what it is cracked
up to be, anyway. In the first place, good little boys don't cut down
their father's fruit-trees. Generally, they like to climb them a great
deal better, especially when the cherries are ripe. I know that--being a
girl, who could have borrowed a hatchet and made myself immortal by
chopping instead of climbing to pick half-green cherries, which I did,
and tore my frock, besides getting a pain in the--well, heart, which two
things betrayed me just as the little hatchet betrayed George.

Now, when my mother asked me what the mischief I'd been about, I didn't
think of saying I couldn't lie, because I could, and longed to do it;
but I knew that New England women would find me out and give me double
"jessie" if I piled a whopper on top of the green cherries and torn
frock, so I told her I didn't know, being conservative--took my whipping
like a man and a trooper, scorning to cover up two sins under one pious
truth.

I didn't follow George Washington's example, for two reasons. First, I
had never heard of the hatchet; and again, the story don't wash to a
degree that is expected of high-priced morality. When the youthful boy,
Father of our Country, said he _couldn't_ lie, he was a-doing it that
very minute. What boy ever lived that couldn't lie? Lying is born in
'em, and they take to it as naturally as a kitten laps milk.

The fellow that wrote that story was a botch. Why didn't he make little
George say, "Father, I won't tell a lie; so there--