e you, Uncle Brad?" drawled a man near him. "Well,
don't commit yourself too far on old Vienny till the Smyrna part of
the parade gets past. I see 'em this mornin' when they unloaded Hecly
One and the trimmin's 'foresaid, and I'd advise you to wait a spell
before you go to callin' this muster names."

It became apparent a little later that hints of this sort were having
their effect on the multitude. Even the head of the great parade,
with old John Burt, chief marshal, titupping to the grunt of brass
horns, stirred only perfunctory applause. The shouts for Avon's
stalwart fifty, with their mascot gander waddling on the right flank,
were evidently confined to the Avon excursionists. Starks, Carthage,
Salem, Vienna strode past with various evolutions--open order, fours
by the right, double-quick, and all the rest, but still the heads
turned toward the elm-framed vista of the street. The people were
expecting something. It came.

Away down the street there sounded--raggity-tag! raggity-tag!--the
tuck of a single drum. Then--pur-r-r-r!

"There's old Smyrna talkin' up!" shrilled a voice in the crowd.

And the jubilant plangor of a fife-and-drum corps burst on the
listening ears.

"And there's his pet elephant for a mascot! How's that for Foreman
Hiram Look and the Smyrna Ancients and Honer'bles?" squealed the
voice once more.

The drum corps came first, twenty strong, snares and basses rattling
and booming, the fifers with arms akimbo and cheeks like bladders.

Hiram Look, ex-showman and once proprietor of "Look's Leviathan
Circus and Menagerie," came next, lonely in his grandeur. He wore
his leather hat, with the huge shield-fin hanging down his back, the
word "Foreman" newly lettered on its curved front. He carried two
leather buckets on his left arm, and in his right hand flourished
his speaking-trumpet. The bed-wrench, chief token of the antiquity
of the Ancients, hung from a cord about his neck, and the huge bag,
with a puckering-string run about its mouth, dangled from his waist.

At his heels shambled the elephant, companion of his circus
wanderings, and whose old age he had sworn to protect and make
peaceful. A banner was hung from each ear, and she slouched along
at a brisk pace, in order to keep the person of her lord and master
within reach of her moist and wistful trunk. She wore a blanket on
which was printed: "Imogene, Mascot of the Smyrna Ancients." Imogene
was making herself useful as well as orname