It was a noisy, merry, bewildering scene as we came upon the ground.  The incessant rattle of small arms, the booming of the twelve-pounder firing on the Mill Dam, and the silvery clangor of the church-bells ringing simultaneously—­not to mention an ambitious brass-band that was blowing itself to pieces on a balcony—­were enough to drive one distracted.  We amused ourselves for an hour or two, darting in and out among the crowd and setting off our crackers.  At one o’clock the Hon. Hezekiah Elkins mounted a platform in the middle of the Square and delivered an oration, to which his “feller-citizens” didn’t pay much attention, having all they could do to dodge the squibs that were set loose upon them by mischievous boys stationed on the surrounding housetops.

Our little party which had picked up recruits here and there, not being swayed by eloquence, withdrew to a booth on the outskirts of the crowd, where we regaled ourselves with root beer at two cents a glass.  I recollect being much struck by the placard surmounting this tent: 

ROOT BEER

SOLD HERE

It seemed to me the perfection of pith and poetry.  What could be more terse?  Not a word to spare, and yet everything fully expressed.  Rhyme and rhythm faultless.  It was a delightful poet who made those verses.  As for the beer itself—­that, I think, must have been made from the root of all evil!  A single glass of it insured an uninterrupted pain for twenty-four hours.

The influence of my liberality working on Charley Marden—­for it was I who paid for the beer—­he presently invited us all to take an ice-cream with him at Pettingil’s saloon.  Pettingil was the Delmonico of Rivermouth.  He furnished ices and confectionery for aristocratic balls and parties, and didn’t disdain to officiate as leader of the orchestra at the same; for Pettingil played on the violin, as Pepper Whitcomb described it, “like Old Scratch.”

Pettingil’s confectionery store was on the corner of Willow and High Streets.  The saloon, separated from the shop by a flight of three steps leading to a door hung with faded red drapery, had about it an air of mystery and seclusion quite delightful.  Four windows, also draped, faced the side-street, affording an unobstructed view of Marm Hatch’s back yard, where a number of inexplicable garments on a clothes-line were always to be seen careering in the wind.

There was a lull just then in the ice-cream business, it being dinner-time, and we found the saloon unoccupied.  When we had seated ourselves around the largest marble-topped table, Charley Marden in a manly voice ordered twelve sixpenny icecreams, “strawberry and verneller mixed.”

It was a magnificent sight, those twelve chilly glasses entering the room on a waiter, the red and white custard rising from each glass like a church-steeple, and the spoon-handle shooting up from the apex like a spire.  I doubt if a person of the nicest palate could have distinguished, with his eyes shut, which was the vanilla and which the strawberry; but if I could at this moment obtain a cream tasting as that did, I would give five dollars for a very small quantity.