CHAPTER XIITHE GREAT PARADE
SCHOOL was over, and it was very near the Fourth of July. Betsy had never seen a celebration, and neither had Van, for that matter, as there had been no demonstrations at the Hospital the year before.
But this year there was to be a grand parade; it was to take place on the grounds, for the entertainment of the patients. For weeks the attendants at the Hospital had been spending their odd moments in making costumes. There were to be floats of every kind filled with revelers, and those who could not ride were to join the procession on foot, decked out with the bravest. After the parade there would be lemonade and peanuts for everybody, with fireworks in the evening.
Betsy was greatly excited. She had been asked to dress as one of a party of haymakers, and ride in a big haywagon, all draped with red, white, and blue. Her big brown eyes danced as shetalked it over the evening before, with Treesa and Mary.
“Why can’t the Boy-Heart ride wit’ you in the waggin?” said Mary. “He’d make a foine show, sittin’ up so grand besoide yez.”
“He’d be great!” said Betsy, clapping her hands. “I’ll put his chain on him, so he can’t get away. He’ll be the finest thing in the show. I’ll ask Aunt Kate. Van, do you want to ride in the procession?”
Van knew well enough they were talking about him. He barked his willingness to take part in anything that promised excitement and a good time, and to play any part, from the Lion to Thisbe. Aunt Kate looked a little dubious, but seeing the light in Betsy’s face, she consented.
And that evening Treesa and Mary put their heads together. Early on the morning of the great day they called to Van, and from Treesa’s room came forth sounds of scuffling and much laughter, ending with a series of barks. Then a little dog burst from the room and danced into the front of the house, with his eyes sparkling, and his spirits so gay that he needs must get hisrope, and have Betsy shake it up with him for a little.
Later he heard Treesa calling, “Here, Pansy, Pansy! Come here, Pollywog—come here again.” (Van’s nicknames among his friends were many and varied.)
He ran to her, capering recklessly, and this time there was less scuffling, and more laughter and barking. When he reappeared, he was the spirit of mystery itself. I doubt, had he been able to talk English, if he could have kept the secret into which he had been taken.
It was just the kind of a day the weather-man should always pick out for the Fourth of July. Sunny and breezy it was; not too hot, not too cold. The preparations went merrily on, and at a quarter to ten Betsy looked for Van, as the festivities were to begin at ten sharp.
But Van did not appear.
“I wonder where he is?” said Mrs. Johns. “I hope nothing has happened.”
“I’ll see if he is in the kitchen,” said Betsy, and just then the swinging door opened, and in came Van—Vanart the Prince, prancing proudly on his hind legs, dressed in the bluest of overallswith white polka dots and shoulder straps; a snowy shirt, one of Treesa’s collars, and a great red Windsor tie at his throat. His forepaws waved out of tiny cuffs; these, with the other two that appeared to be treading on air, his brown head and his stump of a tail sticking through a hole made for it in his overalls, were all the evidence to prove that he was still a dog.
He was as proud as a peacock, and as pleased with the effect of his costume as if he had thought it all up himself and made the clothes. There was no hint of the first struggle, when Treesa and Mary had tried the clothes on; nor of the second, when they taught him how to wear them and he had tolerated the garments for love of the makers. He wore his suit like a man, and looked delightfully self-conscious.
The applause was loud and long, quite enough to satisfy even the vain little Prince, who loved nothing better than being noticed. He felt that already he had made the hit of the day.
“The overalls and the shirt will be simply perfect for the haywagon,” laughed Mrs. Johns. “How did you ever think of it? The collar andthe red tie are the finishing touches. He’ll be the observed of all observers.”
“And patriotic, too,” said Betsy. “Look at the colors—red, white and blue! He’s just grand!”
Van was wriggling with the excitement of the affair. The final adjustment of his red Windsor tie was the hardest to bear, it took so long for Treesa and Betsy to set the bows right; still longer, because they were laughing at Van’s comical pride in himself. When at last he went capering over the lawn at the end of the chain which Betsy held tightly, he was quite too much for the family, who were assembled on the honeysuckle porch, shaking with laughter.
“It’s the foine b’y he is!” said Mary from her station on the kitchen walk.
“He’ll be the whole show, or I miss my guess,” said Treesa.
“It’s the kapin’ of him in the waggin that I’m doubtin’. I hope she do be havin’ a tight hould on the collar of him.”
“Oh, he’ll be all right. He’s so conceited and proud of his clothes that he’ll keep straight.”
Behind the great buildings the procession was forming, with all sorts of strange people runningto and fro. Masked figures in petticoats that were flaunted with distinct masculine awkwardness, pretty young girl-attendants in red, white, and blue, and wearing liberty-caps, children in gay costumes, Uncle Sams and clowns. There were wagons filled with farm-hands, bicycles transformed into whirling rosettes of color, floats bearing the “States,” from Texas to Rhode Island. Every spare attendant and every vehicle on the place was pressed into service. All the employees and their families were there,—even some of the jolly young doctors took part in the motley show.
The procession started out on the mile-long driveway that surrounded the Hospital buildings, and it was truly gorgeous. Betsy’s happy face shone from the seat on the haymakers’ wagon, where she sat proudly with the driver, holding Van beside her.
People from the town and country around, who had turned out to see the parade, laughed at the perky little head with its red necktie, while from many windows the patients shouted all sorts of greetings to his small Magnificence.
“Hello, Van!”
“Ain’t he the dude!”
“Get onto them overalls!”
“Hi, there, Van; lend us your necktie!”
Van bobbed his head every time he heard his name, and enjoyed the whole show as if it had been planned for him alone. He was in his element—the very center of admiration. Betsy felt that she was doing her whole duty by her part of the exhibit. All was going forward as merrily as possible until——
Van looked ahead and saw something in the procession—a small object that had up to now escaped his notice; as they rounded a curve he had a second glimpse of it. One of the attendants, dressed as a clown, was leading a very much bescrubbed and shining young pig. Van was now wide awake.
Piggy was pink as the flush of dawn. He wore a large bow of red, white, and blue ribbon which annoyed him exceedingly. Moreover, he was naturally timid and retiring, and did not like being dragged around by a string in the midst of such queer-looking people. He was distinctly uncomfortable. Piggy protested, and it was his squealing that first drew Van’s attention.
Now Van knew pigs—none better; but this wasa new kind. He did not stop to consider that he himself was groomed and arrayed and fit to kill—that he was quite as funny as the funniest. His one desire was to get a closer view of the strange, uncanny beast. He gave a leap; and almost went over the dash-board, but Betsy was on her guard and held him back. She took a firm grip on his leather collar, which he wore under Treesa’s, and tried to steady him. He wriggled backward under her arm, leaving the collar and chain in Betsy’s hands, while he slipped down behind her, yelping and barking, into the midst of the merrymakers in the hayrick.
Instantly there was uproar and confusion. One caught at his tail, but it was too short to be useful; another grabbed him by his red necktie, and it came away, an unsightly string. Another snatched at his white collar; that also came loose. Some one took a firm hold upon his shirt-front; he gave a mighty squirm, and behold, he was no longer in that shirt! It dangled in the hands of the astonished haymaker. Leaping and wriggling, Van, at top speed, made a pilgrim’s progress from hand to hand, down the whole length of the hayrick.
Betsy was on the ground now; she ran around to the rear, and amid a chorus of gleeful yells from the crowd, she caught her charge as he jumped. The procession had stopped, so Van’s side-show had full swing. He struggled desperately, and was out of Betsy’s arms, leaving the last remnant of his respectability—his overalls—in her hands, and was after that pig.
Piggy was quite unprepared. With nerves already wrought to a high tension by the crowd, and the unaccustomed grandeur of his necktie, the sight of Van bearing down upon him was too much. He squealed as never pig squealed before, and tugged at his gala harness in frantic terror. Van leaped upon him; he tore the offending ribbon bow from his neck; he tried to catch him somewhere, and shake him up, but Piggy was a pachyderm, plump and solid,—and that means that Van could not find one spot on his whole pink exterior where a restraining tooth could be fastened.
Piggy squealed louder; it was an awful moment. One more wild lunge, and the leash flew out of the clown’s hands. With a bound Piggy was off across the lawn, sprinting at a gait so lively thatany razor-back of the wildwood would have been proud to own him as a relative.
Van was hard at Piggy’s heels, in spite of the efforts of the bystanders to catch him; the clown followed Van, Uncle Sam followed the clown; a haymaker went streaking after Uncle Sam; a male attendant in petticoats gathered up his skirts and followed the haymaker—it was far more stirring than the ride of the Miller of Dee.
The whole of the United States stood up in their floats and shrieked with joy, Rhode Island and California clasping hands, as the mad procession went whirling by. Those who did not join in the chase stood cheering and holding their sides and offering good advice.
“Ten to one on the pig!”
“I put my money on the clown!”
“I’m for Van, strong!”
“Hurry, hurry, Uncle Sam. You’re getting left!”
That was an unparalleled race, long to be remembered in the annals of Fourth of July festivities; history hath not its like.
It ended abruptly.
Van caught up with Piggy at the far end of the lawnVan caught up with Piggy at the far end of the lawn
Van caught up with Piggy at the far end of the lawn
Van caught up with Piggy at the far end of the lawn
Van caught up with Piggy at the far end of thelawn, just as the clown arrived and made a dive for Piggy’s leash. There was a struggle, a blur of pink and white, and then Uncle Sam threw his red and blue into the kaleidoscope. The gentleman in petticoats fell, last of all, upon the whole bunch, eclipsing them with his voluminous draperies.
When they arose from the scrimmage, Uncle Sam held Van in a deadly grip, while Piggy was led away, squealing with rage and terror. Still keeping his strangle-hold upon Van, Uncle Sam strode back to the driveway, delivered the protesting culprit into Mary’s hands, and mounted his float once more, a hero, who had saved his country’s honor and his country’s pig from annihilation.
The procession moved on, and every one voted that Van’s impromptu act with the pig was the prize feature of the whole show.
Mary shut the door on him.
“Did ye see the likes of that, now! Little imp that ye are,—sp’ilin’ the parade!
“No, ye’ll not get out ag’in, till the merrymakin’ do be over. Go to bed in yer baskit, ye little spalpeen! Ye’ve disgraced us all.”
Then later:
“If they had hurted ye, Boy-Heart, I’d be afther givin’ ’em what they desairve. An’ yer nice clothes, too, that was so pretty! What did ye do wit’ ’em, annyhow? An’ what’ll Miss Betsy be doin’ to yez?”
When the parade was over and Betsy had returned to the house, she looked Van over despairingly.
“Oh, Vanny-Boy! After all I’ve taught you about manners—think what you’ve done. You’ve disturbed a good pig who wasn’t trying to do anything but look beautiful. You’ve been disobedient. You’ve let your feelings run away with you. No decent dog was ever so dirty. Your lovely clothes are gone, I don’t know where, and you pretty near upset the whole parade. I’m ashamed of you clear to my toes. And here I’ve been trying to bring you up to be a real gentleman.”
The fallen princeling apologized so abjectly that Betsy could not help laughing at him, for after all, it had been funny.
But sure enough, the nice clothes—where were they?
The necktie never came back. Some onehanded Betsy the mangled remains of the shirt and collar; the overalls were missing.
One day, the following summer, Betsy saw a bit of blue calico with white polka dots sticking out from under the edge of the summer-house. She drew it out—the damp, mildewed, faded remnant of Van’s past glory and shame.