ted with
wreaths and flags, where the Declaration of Independence was to be read
and the oration was to be given. "Yankee Doodle" the band was playing
from it when Marley strolled by, and about it were the Washington
Rifles, in their pretty uniform of blue and white, waiting to open the
programme by a salute and some special maneuvering.

But to Marley the most wonderful and interesting of all the sights was
the barbecuing. There were long, broad ditches, floored with coals a
foot deep, over which the great carcasses of hogs and bullocks were laid
on spits, as on a gridiron. Beyond these trenches, great log-fires were
kept blazing, that the ditches might be replenished with coals. Ever and
anon, an immense iron kettle would be seen, borne between two negro men,
and filled with glowing coals. Such hissing and sissing as there was
above those lines of fire! What savory odors were in the air! How
important and fussy the cooks at the spits! How splendid the great
log-heap fires! How grand the high-mounting flames and the columns of
blue smoke! Marley was in a mood to enjoy it all, for "the committee"
had expressed special pleasure with his contribution; it was the only
game on the ground, and they were warm in their compliments of his
sportsmanship.

But after a while, Marley, in his strollings about the grounds, saw a
written placard tacked to a tree. Of course he read it, and then he
stood confounded by the revelation it made to him. Can't you guess what
it was? An advertisement for an escaped pet deer! He knew by the
description (the ten tines, the slashed ear, etc.) that it was the deer
he had shot. To have shot anybody's pet deer, and to know that it was at
that moment over the coals, would have been mortification enough; but it
was the name at the foot of the advertisement which carried to Marley's
heart the sorest dismay he had ever felt in his life. Whose deer had he
killed? Guess! Why, Mandy Bradshaw's! He was so chagrined, so bitterly
distressed, that he would have said he could never smile again. What was
he ever to do about it? Of course, there was but one manly thing to do:
confess the whole matter to General Bradshaw. But he felt sure he'd
rather die than do this. He went over to where Aunt Silvy was barbecuing
the deer, the most melancholy-looking boy, perhaps, that ever was at a
barbecue with a cotton-bloom in his button-hole. To her he told the
truth, and felt better the instant he had spoken it. But when