did not notice the decline of heat and the new sweetness in the air as
the balmy clime of Kansas was approached....
A Fourth of July in Topeka during the reign of King Bourbon! Who
would not give his fame and fortune to have participated in one of
those marvelous celebrations! What pale and weakly imitations we
have nowadays of the ball games between the Fats and the Leans, of
the potato races, and of all the other ingeniously devised contests
which made the last day of King Bourbon’s reign a long procession of
glories and wonders! When will we see again parades, marches and drills
performed by uniformed organizations as they were performed by The
Bartenders’ and Bookmakers’ Bands, The Knights of the Spotted Cubes,
The Mystics and Oracles of Fistiana, The Stentorian Order of Umpires,
The Grandiose Guild of Jockeys, The Loyal Legion of Log-burlers and
many others on that historical day in Topeka? The last-named society
was a new organization that was composed of Paul Bunyan’s loggers. They
aroused the wildest enthusiasm when they appeared in the line of march
treading beer kegs, and for this, and for their triumphs in the races,
King Bourbon awarded them the grand prize.
The bar had been closed for the celebration, and when it was opened
in the evening no one in the spruce and jocund throngs which streamed
through its doors suspected that treason was afoot. Clinking of
glasses, guffaws, jigging feet, back-slapping, bellowed songs and
shouted jests made a tumult of rollicking and boisterous noise as the
reveling began. Urged on by the traitorous bartenders, the nobility
and gentry drank nothing but the sap of the whisky trees. It was a
mild, mellow and soothing beverage when properly aged, but the raw
green sap which the conspirators had supplied would suddenly addle
the mind and paralyze the nerves. The loggers, flushed with conceit
over their day’s triumph, boasted that they were champion drinkers
also, and they dared everyone to enter drinking contests with them.
The bartenders, obeying instructions, filled the loggers’ glasses with
triple-distilled, high-powered redeye. So they were the first to get
bleary-eyed, to wilt and to stagger about. By the time the nobility and
gentry had begun to be affected the loggers had all stumbled outside or
had been carried out. Too late the king and his followers realized that
they were the victims of a conspiracy. When the fumes of the powerful
green sap had completely befuddled them the spies of the Cornmen
lighted the signal fires that were to start the attack.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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