Many of the young fellows had hired at ruinous expense the carriages in which they sat with their girls, wearing a quiet air of aristocratic reserve which did not allow them to shout sarcasms at Milton, when his horse broke into a trot and jounced him up and down till his hat flew off. But mainly the young people were in huge bowered lumber wagons in wildly hilarious groups. The girls in their simple white dresses tied with blue ribbon at the waist, and the boys in their thick woolen suits which did all-round duty for best wear. As they moved off across the prairie toward the dim blue belt of timber which marked the banks of Rock River, other processions joined them with banner, and bands, and choirs, all making a peaceful and significant parade, an army of reapers of grain, not reapers of men. Some came singing "John Brown," or "Hail, Columbia." Everywhere was a voiced excitement which told how tremendous the occasion seemed. In every wagon hid in cool deeps of fresh-cut grass, were unimaginable quantities of good things which the boys never for a moment forgot even in their great excitement. On the procession moved, with gay flags and flashing banners. The dust rolled up, the cattle stared across the fences, the colts ran snorting away, tails waving like flags, and unlucky toilers in the fields stopped to wave their hats and gaze wistfully till the caravan passed. The men shouted jovial words to them, and the boys waved their hats in ready sympathy. At ten o'clock they entered the magnificent grove of oaks, where a speaker's stand had been erected, and where enterprising salesmen from Rock River had erected soda water and candy stands, with an eye to business. There was already a stupendous crowd, at least so it seemed to the farmers' boys. Two or three bands were whanging away somewhere in the grove; children were shouting and laughing, and boys were racing to and fro, playing ball or wrestling; babies were screaming, and the marshals were shouting directions to the entering teams, in voices that rang through the vaulted foliage with thrilling effect, and the harsh bray of the ice cream and candy sellers completed the confusion.