The “Daughters of Liberty” made a brilliant showing in big letters on the little Rhody float, to honor the seventeen young girls who, in 1766, met at the home of good old Deacon Bowen, in Providence, and not only voiced their disapproval of the Colonies’ tax on tea and on cloth manufactured in England, but formed the first patriotic organization known in America. It was the same inspiration of liberty that impelled their emulators to adopt their name, and to plan and push through the demonstration of which every one was so proud. As these Liberty maidens sat and spun at their looms, or whetted their distaffs on the float before the gaping crowd, they were guarded by two impersonations,—one the father of toleration, Roger Williams, who looked benignantly down upon these devotees of freedom, and the other, America’s first club-woman, the learned and martyred Anne Hutchinson. Ah, but who is this riding astride a horse of sable blackness, curveting and prancing with chafing irritation at the tightened rein of its rider, who “Burly and big, and bold and bluff, In his three-cornered hat and coat of snuff, A foe to King George and the English state, Was Cæsar Rodney, the delegate.”[2] Of course there were a few who were not familiar with this little incident in the history of Delaware, and how the aforesaid Rodney, a member of the Continental Congress, spurred his horse from Dover to Philadelphia, a distance of eighty-one miles, to reach Independence Hall before night, in order to cast the vote of Delaware for freedom and independence. It was, indeed, a great ride, and the townspeople must have appreciated it, for the horse and rider were heartily cheered as they read the words on the banner: “It is Liberty’s stress; it is Freedom’s need.” North Carolina proved most interesting, with the inscription, “The First Liberty Bell of America,” on a big hand-bell resting in the center of the float. The inscription and the bell aroused so much curiosity as to why it should take precedence of the old Liberty Bell at Philadelphia, that Nathalie was called upon by a group of friends sitting near, to explain that it really was the first Liberty Bell used in the Thirteen Colonies, having sounded its peal for liberty when rung by the patriots of that State in 1771.