THE FUNNY FOURTH RACKET ON ENGLISH SOIL.

Ruth hoped that her talk, painful though it had been to herself, would have a good influence with the Bearingtons. She would have been quickly undeceived, had she heard a conversation that occurred later on when Mr. Bearington came in from his “smoke walk,” as his wife called it.

“Papa,” said Mrs. Bearington, “I wish you hadn’t bought the fireworks! Miss Cornwallis has just been telling me the particulars of her little brother’s terrible death. I begin to be awfully worried for fear the boys will hurt themselves.”

“O nonsense, Tishy! You needn’t worry. I will attend to that racket. The Cornwallis’ are cranks on the subject, you may set that down. I have heard Cornwallis talk. He thinks because his little boy got killed other boys should be denied the privilege,” laughed Bearington.

“Privilege, papa!” gasped Mrs. Bearington, looking at him in a way as helpless and childish as her style of addressing him warranted.

“O, you never can take a good round joke, Tishy; but you can stop worrying and you must. You must remember that I paid for this vacation and I am bound you shall not take it out in worriment.”

“Perhaps you could dispose of the fireworks papa—then I could not worry about them.”

“No, he won’t!” shouted Robbie bristling up. “He bought them for us and we are going to have them.”

“Down there! Young America!” said Bearington. “And you Tishy! You forget that we are on English soil. There isn’t any demand here for Independence Day jubilators.”

“Nor for Fourth of July celebrations either, papa. There’s Colonel Jordan. I know he wouldn’t call for one.”

“He can’t help himself though. That’s where the fun will come in. I reckon we will teach this English boarding house that if they have us and our money, they will have to take us, Fourth of July racket and all.”

“But the Cornwallis’, papa. I know how I should feel if we should lose one of our boys in that fearful way.”

“That boy didn’t know how to handle fireworks, you bet,” put in Robbie.

“He may have been a natural born idiot for anything we know,” remarked Bearington. “He was too good and beautiful to live anyway, according to their account.”

“Papa, how bu’ful do I have to be to be too bu’ful to live?” asked little Teddy coming up and laying his curly head lovingly on his father’s knee.

“Like a lamb for the slaughter,” thought his mother. She broke out afresh:

“Powder and dynamite are always more or less dangerous, papa.”

“Never you mind, Tishy. They are safe enough if rightly handled; and right enough, too, when they are put to the right uses.”

“What’s the use of powder and die-a-mite except to celebrate the Fourth with, papa?” asked Joey.

“Die-a-mite! do you hear that Tishy?” laughed Bearington. “Well sonny, they are good to blast the rocks with and the English too and send them flying up hill and down, if they should meddle with our affairs as they did before the revolutionary war and have tried to do, two or three times since.”

“Keeo!” shouted Robbie. “Skippetty hop! Hoppetty skip! Bow-wow! Bow-wow!” In response to his call, the three other boys joined him and they went “skippetty hop” into the back yard to worry Colonel Jordan’s English terrier.

Query. Was it the inward cussedness of the boy nature that led them on to this species of brute torture, or was it their father’s injudicious talk?

Mr. Bearington had been all suavity when talking with Mrs. and Mr. Cornwallis about the coming celebration. He even intimated that they might go over to a neighboring island and have their little picnic all by themselves.

“One day is enough for my boys,” he added. “I make them do all their celebrating on the identical day. I don’t believe in drizzling along in such matters more than in others.”

Whereupon Mr. and Mrs. Cornwallis thanked him heartily and rested in the belief that he would not allow his boys to indulge in any annoying demonstrations on their daughter’s account, even during Independence Day; but they like Ruth were greatly mistaken. The day had scarcely dawned when the racket began; and a big racket it was for four small boys to make. But that was not all of it. When they sat down to breakfast they found a firecracker under each plate and the boys were not in evidence, which showed that more mischief was brewing.

“The good for naught imps!” exclaimed the landlady as she cleared away the stuff; “they have been trying to be funny all the morning—throwing torpedoes under my feet and snapping firecrackers in my face. I am glad I don’t live in an independent country if that’s the independence of it.”There were twenty firecrackers, one for each boarder. She put them into the cupboard to get them out of the way and thanked her stars that she had been able to do so before the rest of her boarders came in—especially Colonel Jordan who inclined to be violent if anything went amiss. He had cursed her roundly once upon a time, because a spider had invaded his napkin. What would he have said had he found that insolent reminder of the American victory over the English, underneath his plate?

Colonel Jordan was the last to make his appearance. He was in a ferocious mood, but he softened a little as he took his accustomed seat opposite Ruth.

“A beautiful day Miss Cornwallis—that is right here, but I perceive they are having a right smart thunder shower on the American side. A volcanic or patriotic eruption so to speak. The killed and wounded will not all be brought in before tomorrow, possibly.”

Ruth made no response. Mr. and Mrs. Cornwallis looked anxious. The Colonel felt that something was amiss.

“Beg pardon, this ridiculous Independence Day racket has cost me my morning’s nap; but I ought not to be in a rage I suppose. I fancy you have not enjoyed it either, Miss Cornwallis, although it is one of your country’s choicest exports.”

Ruth began to show signs of nervous distress and Mr. Cornwallis hastened to explain as well as place and time permitted, their attitude on the subject and the sad experience that made them fugitives from home. He closed with a significant look at Ruth, which would have been sufficient for a more impressionable man—a civilian rather than a soldier. Not so, however, with Colonel Jordan. He thought it was the mother’s health that had been effected by the loss of her son, as very naturally it would be. There was nothing in that which appealed especially to his sympathies. Besides, his sympathies were tough. He turned to Ruth as though he had discovered a good joke.

“Beg pardon, Miss Cornwallis; but it would appear from latest advices that the American victory over England is being turned into a most ridiculous defeat. If the Mother Country had only known her wayward children’s fondness for the firecracker and toy pistol all that she would have needed to have done when they turned against her, would have been to have furnished them with a generous supply of those dastardly things and they would have destroyed themselves.”

“The London Pyrotechnist is shrewd enough to take advantage of the situation,” laughed Admiral Larkins. “He has surrounded the country with his manufacturing tents and is said to have sold $10,000,000 worth of Independence Day fireworks to Americans to celebrate their victory over the English, last year—American casualties for that day footed up to about 3,500 in killed and wounded. It’s a good scheme from a financial point of view.”