read.  Here, much bedecked, was the Galena Lincoln Club, part of Joe Davies’s shipment.  Fifes skirled, and drums throbbed, and the stars and stripes snapped in the breeze.  And here was a delegation headed by fifty sturdy ladies on horseback, at whom Stephen gaped like a countryman.  Then came carryalls of all ages and degrees, wagons from this county and that county, giddily draped, drawn by horses from one to six, or by mules, their inscriptions addressing their senatorial candidate in all degrees of familiarity, but not contempt.  What they seemed proudest of was that he had been a rail-splitter, for nearly all bore a fence-rail.

But stay, what is this wagon with the high sapling flagstaff in the middle, and the leaves still on it?

     “Westward the Star of Empire takes its way. 
     The girls link on to Lincoln; their mothers were for Clay.”

Here was glory to blind you,—­two and thirty maids in red sashes and blue liberty caps with white stars.  Each was a state of the Union, and every one of them was for Abraham, who called them his “Basket of Flowers.”  Behind them, most touching of all, sat a thirty-third shackled in chains.  That was Kansas.  Alas, the men of Kansas was far from being as sorrowful as the part demanded,—­in spite of her instructions she would smile at the boys.  But the appealing inscription she bore, “Set me free” was greeted with storms of laughter, the boldest of the young men shouting that she was too beautiful to be free, and some of the old men, to their shame be it said likewise shouted.  No false embarrassment troubled Kansas.  She was openly pleased.  But the young men who had brought their sweethearts to town, and were standing hand in hand with them, for obvious reasons saw nothing:  They scarcely dared to look at Kansas, and those who did were so loudly rebuked that they turned down the side streets.

During this part of the day these loving couples, whose devotion was so patent to the whole world, were by far the most absorbing to Stephen.  He watched them having their fortunes told, the young women blushing and crying, “Say!” and “Ain’t he wicked?” and the young men getting their ears boxed for certain remarks.  He watched them standing open-mouthed at the booths and side shows with hands still locked, or again they were chewing cream candy in unison.  Or he glanced sidewise at them, seated in the open places with the world so far below them that even the insistent sound of the fifes and drums rose but faintly to their ears.

And perhaps,—­we shall not say positively,—­perhaps Mr. Brice’s thoughts went something like this, “O that love were so simple a matter to all!” But graven on his face was what is called the “Boston scorn.”  And no scorn has been known like unto it since the days of Athens.

So Stephen made the best of his way to the Brewster House, the elegance and newness of which the citizens of Freeport openly boasted.  Mr. Lincoln had preceded him, and was even then listening to a few remarks of burning praise by an honorable gentleman.  Mr. Lincoln himself made a few remarks, which seemed so simple and rang so true, and were so free from political rococo and decoration generally, that even the young men forgot their sweethearts to listen.  Then Mr. Lincoln went into the hotel, and the sun slipped under a black cloud.