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Show I THE DAY WE CELEBRATE By O. Henry I (Copyright. 1921, by Poubleday, lge Co.; publisher) by a.teciHl arrangement with the Wheeler Syndicate, Inc.) "In the troplo" (''Hop-along" Bibb, the bird fancier, was saying to me), "the seasons, months, fortnights, week-ends, holidays, dogdays, Sundays and yesterdays yester-days gst so jumbled together In the shuffle shuf-fle that you neyer know when a year has gone by until yoa"re In the middle of th next one." "Hop-along" Bibb kept his bird stare on lower Fourth avenue. He was an ex-seaman ex-seaman and beach-comber who made regular reg-ular voyages to Southern ports and Imported Im-ported personally conducted Invoices of talking parrots and dialectic paroquets, i 1U had a stiff knee, ntclt. and ngnra. I had gone to him to buy a parrot to present, at Christmas, to my Aunt Joanna. Jo-anna. 'This one." said I. disregarding his homily on the subdivisions of time "this one that seems all red. whfte and blue to what genus Of beasts does he belong? He appeals at once to my patriotism patri-otism and to my kTe of discord in color achemes." That's a cockatoo from Keuador." said Bibb, "All he has been taught to say is 'Merry Christinas.' A seasonable bird. He's only seven dollars: and I'll bet muny a human has stuck you for money by making tb same speech to you." And then Bibb laughed suddenly and loudly. "That bird." he explslned, "reminds me. He's got his dat-s mixed. He ought to s saving TO pturtbue unum. to match his ff-athsrs. Instead of trying to work the Bnt Claus graft. It rt-mVhda me of Don Jslme. There we lay fighting mosquitoes and listening to the monkeys aquMiliiig and the alligators grunting and splashing in the lagtion until daylight, with only snatches of s!ep between times. "We soon lost all Idea of what time of the year It was. It's just about eighty degreea there In December and June and i on Fridays and at midnight and election day any other old time. Hometimes it rains more than at others, and that's sll the difference yoti notice. A men Is liable to live along there without noticing any fugittng of tempus until some day the undertaker caHs in for him Just when he's beginning to think about cutting out the gang and saving up a little to Invest In real estate. "I don't know how long we worked for Don Jaime; but it waa through two or three rainy spells, eight or ten haircuts. Trml the life of three pair of sniicloth trousers. All the money we earned went for rum and tohacco; but we ate, and that was something. "AH of a sudden one day me and Liverpool Liver-pool find the trade of committing surgical operations on banana stalks turning to aloes and quinine in our mouths. It's a seizure that often comes upon whits men in Ijitin and geographical countries. We wanted to be addressed in language and see the smoke of a steamer and read the real estst transfers and gents' outfitting ads in an old newsftaper. Kven Holedad seemed like a center of civilisation to us, so thst evening we put our thumb to our noses at Ion Jaime's fruit stand and shook his graps burrs off our feet. I "It was only twelve miles to Koledsd. i but it took me and Liverpool two days , to get there. Jt was banana grove nearly all the way; and we gut twieted time and again. It was like paging the palm room of a New York hotel for a man named Mmith . whiskers and elephant feet with leather saadals strapped to them. 1 suppose 1 looked about the same. "'It looks to me." says I like ureat Brits In ought to be made to keep such ftn-swil)tig, scurvy, unbecoming .mud-arks .mud-arks as you at home Instead of sending 'em over here to degrade and taint foreign for-eign lands. We kicked you out of America Amer-ica once and we ought to put on rubber boots and do it again " Oh, you go to 'ell. says Liverpool, which was about all the repartee he ever had. "Well. Roledsd looked fine to me after i Don Jaime's plantation. Liverpool and me walked Into it side Jjy side, from force of habit, past the raliboea, and the Hotel Orande, down across the plaza toward Chlca's hut, where we hoped that Liverpool, being a husimnd of hers, might work hi lurk far a. meal. "As we passed the two-story little frame house occupied by the American club. We noticed that the balcony had been decorated all around with wreathe of evergreens and Towers', and ths flag waa flying from the pole on the roof. Ht.Tnzey, the consul, and Arkright, a gold mine owner, were smoking on the balcony. Me and Liverpool waved our dirty hands toward 'em and smiled real Society smiles; but they turned their backs to us and went on talking. Arid we had played whist once with the two of 'em up to the time when- Liverpool held all thirteen trumps for four hands in succession. It wss some holiday, we knew; but we didn't know the day nor the year. "A little further along we saw a reverend rev-erend man named r'enriergaet, who had come to Holed.Ml to build a church, standing stand-ing tinder a cocoa nut palm with his little black alpaca coat and green umbrella. " 'Boys, boys!" says he, through his bio fin 1a If am KoH mm f i i., - a "When wa WW the tiotlafa of Koledad betjen Ihe tree, all my dlelnrltnation toward thla Liverpool Ham roae up In ma. I alood him while 'wa war. two white man nratnsr the banana brlndlea: but how. when there were proeperta of my exihanirlrnr even euaa worde with an American rltlien,. I put him bark In hie proper place. And ha waa a elrht, too. wllhhijrum-painted noae and hl red you 9o far reduced? " "We're reduced,' says I, to very TUl-irar TUl-irar fractions ' " 'It is Indeed aad.' says Pendersaat, to tw-e my countomen in such circura-st.'inca.' circura-st.'inca.' .. .,-ut .arf ot ,(,, out party . MT, Liverpool, t'awn't you tell a member of the British upper classes when you see one? " hut up. I told tJverpool. 'You're on foreiirn soil now. or that portion of It that'a not oa you.' " 'And on thin day, too!' roes on Pen-drgat, Pen-drgat, grievous 'on this most glorious d.iy of the year when we should all he celebrating; Ihe dawn of Christian civill- " " uuwri.au or me wicKeov ' 'I did notice bunting and bouquets decorating th town, reverend,' pays I 'but I don't know what It was for. We're been so Ions; out of touch with calendars that we didn't know whether it was summer sum-mer time or Saturday afternoon.' " 'Here Is two dollars,' savs l,ndergast, digging up two Chill stiver wheels and handing 'em to me. 'Oo, mv men. and observe the rest of the day in a befitting manner. 'He snd IJverpool thanked him kindly and walked away. " 'Shall w eatr I asks. " n 'U- Llvsrpool. "What's money for? ' 'Very well, then. I savs, 'since you Insi-t upon It, we ll drink. "8o we pull up In a rum shop and get a quart of it and go dowrmon the beach under a coromnut tree and celebrate. "Not havin- eaten anything but oranges in two days, the rum has immediate effect; ef-fect; snd ones more I conjure up great ! repugnance toward th Brituh nation. ! 'bland up here.' 1 nays to Liverpool you scum of a despot limited monarchy and hive another dose of Bunker Hill. That good man. Mr. Pendergsst.' savs J wr to observe the, dav "in a beflttinc manner, and I'm not going to ses his money misapplied. oi me lime ma inu iwi . our itleae of thin, tatlfllfcl up on the coast of Costa llu-a on account of the whether and ether phenomena, to be met with In the trupk-s. "We were, aa it wrre. stranded on that section of the Hnunlsh main with no money to aprak uf and no friends that ehouM be talked shout either. We hail stoked and second-cooked ourselves down there on a fruit steamer from New Orleans Or-leans to try tour luck, which s nla-chJireed, nla-chJireed, after we got there, for le-k of evidence. There was no work suitable to our Inetincta; no me and I.iverKMi hefran to eubsiet on the red ruin of the eountry and such fruit as we could r.ap where we had not sown. '! was sn sllti-vian sllti-vian town, rolled SMnlail. where there waa no harbor or future or recourse. Between ateamers the town slept and drank rum.' It only woke up. when there were Bananas to ehip. It whs like a man sieepin through dinner until the deaeert. "When me and Liverpool got eo low down that the American consul wouldn't speak to us we knew we'd struck bedrock, bed-rock, "We boarded with a snuff-brown lady named Chic, who kept a rumahop and a leriiea' and gents' restaurant in a street called Ihe calie de loa Forty-seven Incen-sulahle Incen-sulahle Maint.. When our credit played out there. Uverpool. stomach overshadowed overshad-owed with sensations of noblesse obhg-e, married t'hiea. This k-p ua In rice and friend plantain for a month; and then Ohloa pounded Liverpool one morning sadly And earnestly for fifteen minutes wan a casserole handed down from tie stene sgi. and wa knew that ws had out-wetcemvd out-wetcemvd our liver. That niirM we signed sn engagement with lkn Jaime McSpl-nosa, McSpl-nosa, a hvhrid banana fancier of the place, to work on hia fruit preeerveevtlne miles out of twon. Ws had to do It or-be or-be reduced to eea water and brokaa doses of feed and alumber. "Now. .peaking of Liverpool Sam. 1 don't malign or Tneaculpate hinr to you any more than 1 would to hi. face. - Put in my opinion, when an Kngliahman gag, as low aa he can he's got to douge ao thst the drega of other nations don't drop ballast on htm out of their balloons. And If he's a Liverpool Englishman, why, firedamp is what he's got to look out for. Hajng a natural American, that's mv personal view, glut Liverpool snd me baa much in common. We were without decorous clothes or ways and means of existence; snd. ss the saying goea. mis-' ery certainly does enjoy tbe society of accomplices. "Our job on old Mcftpinoefl's plantation was chopping down bsnaaa stalks and loading the bunchea f fruit on the backs of horsea. Then a native dreaeed up in aa alligator hide belt, a macheta and a pair of AA sheeting pajamas, drlvee 'em over to tha coast and pilee 'em up on the beach. "You ever been In a banana grove? It's as solemn aa a rathskeller at seven a. m. It s like belnff lost behind the scenes at one of ths mushroom musical .hows. Toa can't see the sky for the foliage above you; and the ground Is knee deep In rotten leavee; and It's eo till that you can hear the atalks growing sgaln afrer you chop 'em down. "At p nie and lveroool herded In a lot of graes huta on the e1ge of a lagoon with the red. yellow and black employes 4 --'n. you go to ell: aays Liverpool, end J stsrted In with a fins left-hander on his right eye. K..'.'La l?001, hd Wer once, but dissipation and bad company had taken the nerve out of him. in ten minutes min-utes I had him lying on tne sand waving the white flag. "':'' "P. eaye I. kicking him In tha ribs, and come along with me 'Liverpool got up and followed behind T.A iSi'V-"." habit wiping the i red off his fjee snd nose. Paled him to I Reverend Pendergast's shack and called Dim out. .v.!' 'pok this, sir.' says I look at i.i!L vi tht w" e a proud Brlt- m V: !! "vs us two dollars snd told i?J ''ebraie the day. The star-spaa. Juti.,?-H,,L,!"'.wy- forlhe stars snd eagles! ..-"v1? "." "? p"ergas. holding R handa. 'Fighting on this dav of andeya! On Christmas day. whea peace "Christmas, hell!' says I. 1 thought U was ths FeSrth of July!' ' e e t "Merry Chri-Amas!" said the red, while 'and blue cockatoo. "Take hi m for six dollars." said Hop-sTong Hop-sTong Kthte. -He-g got his dans andt colore col-ore asiaed. |