HOW A DANBURY BOY ENJOYED THE CENTENNIAL.

Dunstan Times, Issue 762, 24 November 1876, Page 3

HOW A DANBURY BOY ENJOYED THE CENTENNIAL.

—o— Ho stood on the library grounds during the delivery of the oration. He was a small boy—small for bis age, besides, with a color-, less face, quiet-looking eyes, and a month whose motionless thin lips were as expressionless as a paving stone. Old people made timid by the noises, the crowd, the proximity of restless horses, and the general uncertainty of their surroundings would naturally place their backs to this boy with considerable composure. If there was any expression at all in the combination of his several features, it inclined to deraurencss. He looked like a boy who would bear many things obnoxious before he would I'esist. He was leaning against the trunk of a tree, with his hands hanging listlessly by his side, and bis sleepy eyes gazing at nothing, in particular. The anniversary of our national independence is a day on which a small boy becomes an object of distrust to nervous people, and many of these, finding themselves in the neighborhood of the colorless youth, were observed to take a quick, apprehensive glance at him ; but one lock assured, them, and, with a sigh of relief, they would drop him from their mind and turn their attention to something else. ■ One old lady was so pleased with the comforting. cast of his countenance that she expressed the hope that he was enjoying himself. Ho said, “Yes, ma’am,” with a politeness that was quite delightful. Ten seconds later the old lady was induced to jump forward so hastily and unexpectedly afe to nearly dislodge the head of a corpulent person with the point of the umbrella she was using to indicate an object.to her husband. “Drat the firecracker,” she gasped, in apologetic explanation to the nearly decapitated individual, who, with Hie noise and blow combined, was nearly bereft of Lis senses, and was glaring around in search of the miscreant. “Boy, did you see who did that ?” he inquired in a softened voice, as his eyes rested on the demure youth. “No, sir,” was the frank reply. ‘ 1 If yon see anyone throwing off firecrackers on people, you let me know, an’ I’ll give ’em something they’ll remember,” promised the corpulent individual, rubbing his neck. Then he turned about and was adjusting his glasses, which had been knocked off by the shock, when there was a sudden and most dreadful explosion right between his legs, and the unhappy man went forward so precipitately, with his glasses on his chin, that he passed completely over a haby-perambulator, and brought up head first in the back of the knees of a strange party, who, being attacked so suddenly, and not knowing what else to do, hastily doubled up and backwards and came down in a sitting posture on the head of the corpulent individual. When the awful mass was disentangled, the boy with the colourless face had disappeared from the tree, and was now standing motionless against the comer of the building, with his dreamy eye in the direction of a farm waggon near by, but apparently not taking it in. On the seat of the waggon sat a sturdy-looking granger with his buxom wife, both regaling themselves with a hearty lunch. Tne man had deposited a substantial bite of pickle and bread and meat in his mouth, and was following them up with two square inches of cheese, when there was a spurt of smoke from beneath the scat, followed instantly by a terrible rattling crash, and when the smoke cleared the man was on his knees where the horse would have been had he been attached, with his mouth full of victuals arid earth, while the woman with her irat over her face, a flaming handkerchief in one Land, and a halfpound pickle tightly clutched in the other, was sitting square on the ground, with her whole mind concentrated on her breath, which appeared to be fast deserting her. The boy with the colorless face saw it all, saw it with scarcely the movement of a muscle in his face, except a very faint quiver about the corners of his mouth, which may have arisen from emotion, but was more likely caused from worms. He was the Jonah of the Centennial in Danbury. Wherever a casualty occurred he could be seen- -the same colorless face, sleepy eyes, and expressionless lips. Everybody noticed the quiet face, tire gentle bearing of the little boy, and many commented upon it. “What an interesting face,” observed the young ladies. “That Child must be wormy,” said the old ladies. However that was, he was ordained to see more people lose their balance, and hear more profanity, than fell to the lot of any ton ordinary hoys. We might say ho never once lost control of himself, but wo doubt very much if there is anything in such a boy to control. When night came, he wont home as grave and serious as a Now England deacon in debt, and went to his bod, and sank into a slumber as expressionless as the sleep of the dead. It must have cost his father five dollars for firecrackers alone.