Chapter VI

The marshal his hungry compatriots led, Where Freedom's viands were thickly spread, With all that man or woman could eat, From crisp to sticky--from sour to sweet. There were chickens that scarce had learned to crow, And veteran roosters of long ago; There was one old turkey, huge and fierce, That was hatched in the days of President Pierce; Of which, at last, with an ominous groan, The parson essayed to swallow a bone; And it took three sinners, plucky and stout, To grapple the evil and bring it out. And still the dinner went merrily on, And James and Lucy and Hannah and John Kept winking their eyes and smacking their lips, And passing the eatables into eclipse. And that was the way The grand array Of victuals vanished on that day, That gave us-- _Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!_ (With some starvation, the records say,) Our well-fed Independence!