University of Virginia Library

TORCHLIGHT PATRIOTISM.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 677EAF. Page 165. In-line Illustration. Image of a boy holding aloft a smoking torch while an old woman looks at him.]

HOORAY! hooray!” yelled
Ike, as he dashed in at the
front-door with a lighted
torch, swinging it over his
head, and spattering the
oily fluid around upon the
tables and chairs, a drop
even falling upon the snow-white
table-cover that lay
folded up on a shelf. The
smoke of the torch filled
the kitchen, and rolled
along the snow-white ceiling
in murky volume, to the great annoyance of Mrs.
Partington, who always said if there was anything on
“airth” that she held in utter “excrescence,” it was
“ile.”

“What 's to pay now?” said the dame rising, and
she heard, through the floor, the noise made by the
“unterrified democracy” in torchlight procession assembled.
Paul was a democrat, and her sympathy kept time
with the martial music.

“Quite a furor,” said we to her as we recognized her.
A tremendous cheer interrupted us.

“A few roar,” said she, smiling, “I think it is a good
many roar. Ah!” continued she, “I do love to see the

unclarified democracy in possession, with their torches a
blazing and their patrickism a busting.”

She felt patriotic. Her face was momentarily lit up
with the emotions of her soul and the light of a Roman
candle, and then the venerable countenance melted away
in the darkness, as the candle, after making a great effort
to sustain itself, became exhausted and snuffed itself out.