Ah me! That's one of the sad features of such an occasion.
If there is anything more magnificent than a firemen's parade, I
don't know what it is. The varnished woodwork on the apparatus
looks as if it had just come out of the shop and every bit of bright
work glitters fit to strike you blind. You take, now, a nice
hose-reel painted white and striped into panels with a fine red
line, every other panel fruits and flowers, and every other panel a
piece of looking-glass shaped like a cut of pie and; I tell you, it
looks gay. That's what it does. It looks gay. Some of the
hook-and-ladder trucks are just one mass of golden-rod and hydrangeas,
and some of them are all fixed with this red-white-and-blue paper
rope, sort of chenille effect, or more like a feather boa. Everybody
has on white cotton gloves, and those entitled to carry speaking
trumpets have bouquets in the bells of them, salvias, and golden-rod,
and nasturtiums, and marigolds, and all such.
The Wapatomicas always have a dog up on top of their wagon. First
off, you would think it didn't help out much, it is such a forlorn
looking little fice; but this dog, I want you to know, waked up the
folks late one night, 'way 'long about ten or eleven o'clock, barking
at a fire. Saved the town, as you might say. And after that, the
fire-boys took him for a mascot.
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