The gentlemen of the committee, finding how matters were going, redoubled their exertions, and by adding preparations for a _fête champêtre_ to those for the more public object, succeeded in awakening an interest on the side of the female portion of the community; so that, as the day drew nigh, they began to hold up their heads and boast aloud, that, go the day as it might, the beauty of the country would be found displayed only in the valley. The scene of festivity determined upon was the little promontory at the mouth of Hawk-Hollow Run, and the river-bank at its base, where were such green plots as might have enticed fairies, as well as mortal women, into the joys of the dance. A small piece of ordnance was dragged upon the promontory; the venerable habitation of the fishing-hawks was tumbled about their ears, and the tall and naked trunk that supported it, converted into a gigantic flag-staff, from which the striped banner was seen waving as early as the afternoon of the 3d. A scaffold some five or six feet in height was also erected around the trunk, and a tribune, or orator's desk, with seats behind it, constructed thereon; the whole forming a rostrum suitable to the occasion, which the good taste of the supervisors caused to be canopied and adorned with branches of laurel, that were also wreathed around the tree almost to its top. The whole of the day preceding the celebration was occupied with these and other preparations, in most of which the painter contributed his personal assistance with great zeal. He had consented, after first flatly refusing the honour, tendered him at the instance of his friend the poet, to accept the appointment of reader of the Declaration, with the pronouncing of which sacred instrument the exercises of such a celebration are always begun; and although, on many occasions, when his auxiliaries were all as busily occupied as himself, he betrayed a strong disposition to desert, and betake himself to the distant mansion, there was no one, when all were assembled together under its roof, sharing the hospitality of the Captain and the smiles of his daughter, who exhibited a more disinterested anxiety to hurry all back again to their duties.