ll frizzed at the ends, and a wide blue sash and
her white frock starched as stiff as a milk-pail. Everybody says: "Aw,
ain't she just too sweet?"

The Caledonias have tried to make quite a splurge this year. They walk
four abreast, with their arms locked, and their white gloves on each
other's shoulders. Their truck has on it what they call "an allegorical
figure." There is a kind of a business (looks to me like it is the axle
and wheels of a toy wagon, stood up on end and covered with white paper
muslin and a string tied around the middle) that is supposed to be an
hour-glass. Then there is a scythe covered with cotton batting, and then
a man in a bath-robe (I saw the figure of the goods when the wind blew
it open) also covered with white cotton batting. The man has a wig and
beard of wicking. First, I thought it was Santa Claus, and then I saw
the scythe and knew it must be old Father Time. The hour-glass puzzled
me no little though. The man has cotton batting wings. One of them is
a little wabbly, but what can you expect from Caledonia? They're always
trying to butt the bull off the bridge. They're jealous of our town. Oh,
they stooped to all the mean, underhanded tricks you ever heard of to
get the canning factory to go to their place instead of here. But we
know a thing or two ourselves. Yes, we got the canning factory, all
right, all right.

Did you notice how neat and trim our boys looked? None of this flub-dub
of scarlet shirts with a big white monogram on the breast, or these
fawn-colored suits with querlycues of braid all over. They spot very
easily. And did you notice how the Caledonias had long, lean men
walking with short, fat men, and nobody keeping step? Our boys were all
carefully graded and matched, and their dark blue uniforms with just the
neat nickel badge, I think, presented the best appearance of all. And
I'll tell you another thing. They'll put it all over the Caledonias this
afternoon. They won't let 'em get a smell.

Don't you like the fife-and-drum corps? The fifes set my teeth on edge,
but I could follow the drums all day with their:

Tucket a brum, brum brum-brum, tuck-all de brum
Tucket a brum-brum, tuck-all de brum-brum-brum
Tucket a blip-blip-blip-blip, tucka tuck-all de brum,
Tucket a brum-brum, tuck-all de brum-brum-brum!

Part of the time the drummers click their sticks together instead of
hitting the drum-head. That's what makes it sound so nice. I wish I
could play the