A GOOD CELEBRATION—ADELAIDE SCHWARMER AND RUTH’S DOG.

Ralph learned that the Schwarmer Pyrotechnics and the agent employed to show them off had come as usual on the midnight train. His wife and daughter had also come, so as a matter of course there would be an extra display. They did not come every year as Schwarmer himself did.

“They were in London last Fourth and were royally entertained by a celebrated Pyrotechnist, who invented a patriotic piece called Eagle’s Screams on purpose for them,” said Ralph.

“Perhaps they brought one home with them.” laughed Ruth.

“And will bring it to the Hill to show off,” added Ralph. “Well it will be better and less dangerous than those abominable rockets.”

“I thought rockets were not very dangerous, Ralph.”

“There are rockets and rockets, sky rockets and war rockets and the Satanic inventors are getting up new and worse ones every year. No knowing what kind they have on the Hill. I have known of their having one at least that travelled a much longer distance than from here to the Hill and then went swooping down to the earth like a thunder bolt from the sky; but how stupid of me to tell you so, dear. Forgive me if I have made you afraid.”

“Not a bit, Ralph! I am never going to be afraid any more—that is, if you will tell me all about those fiendish inventions, so I can keep out of their way and help keep others out also. O how dreadful though to think that such horrible things are made! Surely they never ought to be. They are made to kill. They are a menace to human life on a prodigious scale and the men who invent them are no better than would-be murderers and should be arrested and treated as such.”

“That’s true, Ruth, and yet the governments of the world approve and hasten to buy the murderous inventions. There’s an inventor in this state who has made a gun for this government that will throw a shell thirty miles and crash a boat into kindling wood and kill every soul on board. And now he is trying to invent one that will throw a shell one hundred miles—one that can reach from the coast of France across the English channel and rip out the heart of London!”

“O how hideous!” exclaimed Ruth. “He must be a fiend incarnate; but what about the Schwarmer rocket?”

“Here it goes,” said Ralph.

“Mamma came within an inch of having her arm gored by one of the rockets sent down from the Hill only last year. She cautioned me not to write to you about it. I thought it foolish not to; but perhaps it was right not to tell you then. Now it is different. You have grown so brave—so suddenly brave. It seems to me you are growing braver and braver every hour. It’s like a miracle! Explain.”

Ruth’s explanation set Ralph into raptures. Presently, however, she called for an explanation in turn.

“There isn’t much more to explain,” said Ralph. “We all sat on the piazza watching the sky-rockets that were being sent up from the hill, at least the rest were. If I remember rightly I wasn’t paying much attention to them. My imagination had ‘crossed over’—you understand gone over the border—across the river—you see?”

“Yes! yes Ralph, you foolish fellow—go on.”

“All at once up went a splendid rocket—ever and ever so high—‘up out of sight,’ papa said; but he was mistaken, for a second after it came whizzing down close by mamma’s arm and crashed into the ground. Mamma was sitting very near to the edge of the veranda. If she had only been an inch nearer it would have gashed her arm frightfully without doubt. I dug the thing up the next morning and am going to keep it in remembrance of Millionaire Schwarmer.”

“How did it look, Ralph? I never saw one except in air; tell me.”

“A conical shaped piece of lead, Ruth—worse than a cannon ball, because it has a pointed end. I’ll show it to you to-morrow.”

“We must tell the President about that and see if something can’t be done before another Fourth comes to stop him from showering such things upon the town,” said Ruth with decisive emphasis.

Then they went to the grove and worked like heroes. Ere long there was a great army of them. Tables were spread as if by magic and laden with fowls, fruits, cakes and candies of all description. The brass band played its best music. Flags fluttered in the breeze—mottoes were every-where and over the arched entrance was the unique invitation—“A feast is better than firecrackers. Come boys and girls. Save your eyes and your pennies.”

They came in overwhelming numbers—hand in hand with their fathers, mothers and teachers and with looks of eager interest on their young faces. They enjoyed themselves and each other’s society as they never had before on their nation’s birthday.

In fact the whole community seemed to have been taken suddenly off its feet (“out of the pit and miry clay” as the minister expressed it) and whirled up to a higher plane. He preached the best sermon of his life, if it could be called a sermon. It was short and to the point—well adapted to the higher plane on which he was standing with all the rest.

Among the good things that he said was that “our National Day should be a day of tender memories, regrets and righteous resolves—tender memories of those who had died that we might have a free country in which to live. Regrets that such death and bloody sacrifice should have been essential or seemed so—deep regrets that we did not have a court of arbitration in the pre-revolutionary times, such as we now have; and resolves to appeal to it and abide by its wise decisions for all future time. As to this community which has been so providentially turned God-ward, or lifted to a higher plane let it be further resolved that we will maintain that high position with our whole might and main—that we will go ahead in this good fight until all these devil-caught celebrations, life-destroying games and brutal amusements are done away with—or the devil in them cast out.”

Ralph seconded the minister’s resolution and it was carried amidst manifestations of great joy.

It was afterward averred that the church people really kissed each other according to the biblical instruction and it is true that many mothers kissed their boys and that Ralph kissed Ruth fervently, whereupon those who did not know of their marriage became suddenly aware of it and there was a general rush to kiss the bride and congratulate the bridegroom.

A FEAST IS BETTER THAN FIRECRACKERS.

“And so they have got their wedding reception after all, Angeline,” laughed Mr. Cornwallis, “and without any fussery or finery of the tiresome cut and dried pattern.”

Then the brass band played a wedding march. Lawyer Rattlinger and President Hartling dropped in and made excellent, “higher plane” speeches—that is, speeches delightfully devoid of brutish war-sentiment and silly spread-eagleism—after which the Sunday-school children sang, “God Bless Our Native Land,” with great vigor and were rewarded with a delicious finish of ice-cream and lemonade.

They went home as happy as larks, although their pockets were stuffed with nuts and candies instead of baneful firecrackers and deadly toy-pistols—a lively protest for their elders who have been too ready to say that a boy will not be satisfied with anything that does not possess the elements of noise and danger.

As Ralph surmised, the Schwarmers were making great preparations for the evening display. It was to be a splendid one. A select party had been invited from the city to witness it. They came on the afternoon train while the celebration was at its height; so their advent made no sensation. The shops were closed and the streets were quite deserted, greatly to Mr. Schwarmer’s chagrin, for in making his plans for a brilliant gathering he had counted on a background of gaping people and corruscating fireworks. The deficiency was so noticeable that Mr. Alfonso Bombs, the rising Pyro-spectacle King of the city—the guest par excellence whom he wished to honor in an appropriate manner, exclaimed derisively:

“How’s this, Schwarmer? Have they exhausted your huge supply already and annihilated themselves in the performance? I thought this was your kingdom (so to speak) and we should be treated to a triumphal entry.”

Schwarmer would rather have had the matter unnoticed, but it was not and he would not imperil his reputation for bluntness by keeping silence.

“You’ve been in England too long, Alfonso. You’ve forgotten that we don’t have things of that sort as they do on the other side of the pond—that is, except in a way, you understand—an irregular sort of way. Consequently we never know just what will take place at a given point, you see—or just when a triumphal entry will materialize, so to speak, most assuredly we don’t. It’s never been at all like this before; most assuredly it hasn’t. There have always been plenty of racket, plenty of fireworks and things of that sort from dawn to dark and fore and aft—variegated with a run-away horse and excitements of that kind; but the fact is a great moral wave has struck the town—a very large one. You see, even a moral wave is liable to be of very large dimensions, this side of the pond.”

“Moral wave! Mr. Schwarmer,” drawled one of the ladies. “Re-al-ly you must be joking. I have been educated to think it was an exceedingly immoral procedure not to celebrate our Independence Day in an appropriate and impressive manner.”

“Impressive—yes truly impressive, dear lady; but you see it’s too impressive sometimes—too largely impressive, as everything is apt to be in this country—that is if it’s impressive at all, and now and then it impresses the wrong boy. Last year a lawyer’s little boy had a finger broken and an alderman’s boy had an eye hurt.”

“Ah indeed! That was most unfortunate,” replied Miss Drawling; “and they were people of consequence—that is, in this small community.”

“Certainly! certainly—that is of the ‘toad in the puddle style’” laughed Schwarmer. “So you see they called a meeting, a sort of grievance meeting and resolved not to let their children have any more fireworks. Now I believe they are having a pious celebration in the church grove or graveyard, I don’t know which.”

“Whew! oh whew!” whistled Mr. Bombs; “and so you have all that patriotic fervor on your hands! Shall we make a bonfire of it tomorrow as a starter to their lagging patriotism?”“Not unless we go a-fishing,” laughed Schwarmer, beckoning him aside. “You know how a thing of that kind turns when the sediments are all stirred up so to speak. A lot of cranks seized the fireworks and dumped them all into the river! They fancied they were our forefathers, I suppose, dumping the English tea into Boston Harbor—the knaves!”

“Zounds!” exclaimed Mr. Bombs. “That was a steep proceeding. How high do you suppose it will climb?”

“K. K.,” replied Schwarmer. “Probably until the attention is called off by some new thing—very new and of more dazzling proportions—like those new inventions of yours—for instance.”

“I understand! Good! Good! Nero is himself again. The siege of Yorktown! The Battle of Gettysburg! and Johnny Bull’s Bellows to offset Pang’s Eagle Screams! Eh, Schwarmer!” added Bombs in a low tone, giving him a sly poke in the ribs; “and money made out of them. That’s better than giving away things to an ungrateful public. They can’t throw Yorktown into the river if they should try. You are a trump, Schwarmer.”

That ended the business for Schwarmer. There was nothing that pleased him better than being called a trump. He had not really intended to make a business proposition; but the shrewd would-be million-maker and son of a million-maker had construed it into that meaning, and it was understood to be an unwritten bargain between them.

Thereupon a great silence fell upon the spirit of Alfonso Bombs. He was resting in rich security—the kind of security he liked. The $10,000,000 that for a few brief moments seemed jeopardized would eventually flow into the great Bombs’ coffers and the time would come when he would be more envied than the President of the United States; and his old-time victor would be beaten back to the place from whence he came.

“Bah!” the thin lips parted with an ironical smile, and the word of contempt came very near falling out. He congratulated himself on having checked it in time, for turning aside he saw a pair of clear but rather penetrating eyes looking directly at him, and a gentle voice asked:

“What is it that pleases you so dreadfully, Mr. Bombs?”

It was the voice of Adelaide Schwarmer.

“O! Ah! Beg pardon, Miss Adelaide,” said Mr. Bombs, in the flurried way which was usual with him when she asked him a sudden question, although she was only a chit of a girl, barely fifteen years of age.

“For the smile or the style of it, Mr. Bombs?”

“For both if need be; but where did you come from so suddenly? I didn’t see you at the train.”

“No, I wasn’t there, I stopped to shake paws with—guess who?”“The baker or candlestick-maker or some stick-at-home fellow. Most of the folks seem to have gone away.”

“No, it was a dog—Ruth Cornwallis’ dog. He’s funny. He always wants to shake paws with me when I come. I haven’t been here in two years, but he was on hand to shake all the same. I wonder why?”

“Can’t say, Miss Adelaide. All I know is that dogs were on hand to bark at us when we got off from the train, quite a number of them and there was one that led the band.”

“I wonder if it was Ruth’s—he came running from that way. How did he look?”

“Can’t say. They looked so much alike; but I think this one had a new white collar on, as though there had been a wedding in the family.”

“O that’s the one, Mr. Bombs. I wonder what made him bark at you?”

“None but a dog could tell, Miss Adelaide, and they are dumb.”

“I wouldn’t blame him if you had that dreadful smile on, Mr. Bombs.”

“It wouldn’t do any good to blame him anyhow, Miss Adelaide. Dogs know what they are about as well as folks.”

“Don’t you think it does any good to blame folks when they do wrong?”

“Not much, not much. Sometimes it does harm—almost always to contrary people.”“Well, I’m going to blame them any way every time I see them doing anything I know is wrong after this and take the chances. I’ll be fifteen years old tomorrow.”

“Better put it off until you are of age, Miss Adelaide.”

“No, I will not, Mr. Bombs. You needn’t smile that smile—I’m going to begin tomorrow at the very hour.”

They walked slowly up the hill while the rest of the party dashed by them in the Schwarmer turnouts; but they did not speak to each other again until the party had gathered on the broad veranda to witness the evening’s entertainment.