of
Joe Davies's shipment. Fifes skirled, and drums throbbed, and the stars
and stripes snapped in the breeze. And here was a delegation headed by
fifty sturdy ladies on horseback, at whom Stephen gaped like a
countryman. Then came carryalls of all ages and degrees, wagons from this
county and that county, giddily draped, drawn by horses from one to six,
or by mules, their inscriptions addressing their senatorial candidate in
all degrees of familiarity, but not contempt. What they seemed proudest
of was that he had been a rail-splitter, for nearly all bore a
fence-rail.

But stay, what is this wagon with the high sapling flagstaff in the
middle, and the leaves still on it?

"Westward the Star of Empire takes its way.
The girls link on to Lincoln; their mothers were for Clay."

Here was glory to blind you,--two and thirty maids in red sashes and blue
liberty caps with white stars. Each was a state of the Union, and every
one of them was for Abraham, who called them his "Basket of Flowers."
Behind them, most touching of all, sat a thirty-third shackled in chains.
That was Kansas. Alas, the men of Kansas was far from being as sorrowful
as the part demanded,--in spite of her instructions she would smile at
the boys. But the appealing inscription she bore, "Set me free" was
greeted with storms of laughter, the boldest of the young men shouting
that she was too beautiful to be free, and some of the old men, to their
shame be it said likewise shouted. No false embarrassment troubled
Kansas. She was openly pleased. But the young men who had brought their
sweethearts to town, and were standing hand in hand with them, for
obvious reasons saw nothing: They scarcely dared to look at Kansas, and
those who did were so loudly rebuked that they turned down the side
streets.

During this part of the day these loving couples, whose devotion was so
patent to the whole world, were by far the most absorbing to Stephen. He
watched them having their fortunes told, the young women blushing and
crying, "Say!" and "Ain't he wicked?" and the young men getting their
ears boxed for certain remarks. He watched them standing open-mouthed at
the booths and side shows with hands still locked, or again they were
chewing cream candy in unison. Or he glanced sidewise at them, seated in
the open places with the world so far below them that even the insistent
sound of the fifes and drums rose but faintly to their ears.

And perhaps,--we shall