All this while wee Lucy was growing impatient.

“I fink Jimmy might come back,” said she.

For she had a small tricycle, and he was teaching her to ride.

“When will he come, Vendla?”

Vendla did not know. She thought he might come by ten o’clock.

“Well, what’s now o’clock?”

“It’s half-past nine o’clock now.”

Lucy ran to the back parlor, and climbed a chair that stood by the mantel. The pretty marble clock was ticking its best; but she thought it did not tick fast enough. She opened the door of the clock, and moved the black hands round.

“Now maybe ’twill strike,” she thought; “and then he’ll come.”

It did strike, again and again, and yet again, till the sweet cathedral chimes filled all the air, and mamma came hurrying down-stairs to see what had happened.

“Lucy, Lucy,” said she in a tone of displeasure, “have you been touching the clock?”

“I had to make it strike, mamma, so my Jimmy would come,” replied the little rogue, scrambling down from the chair. “Are you in earnest, mamma? Oh, I don’t want you to be in earnest with your little girl!”

She looked in her mother’s face anxiously as she spoke; and Mrs. Dunlee promised to forgive her if she would never meddle with the clock again.

“No, I won’t ever, mamma, ever any more.”

At that very moment Jimmy appeared. Lucy ran up to him, laughing and crying; laughing because she had brought him home by making time go faster; crying because mamma was “in earnest” with her little girl.

“I’m all ready, and my dolly’s been all ready for ever ’n’ ever. ’Most got the friz out of her hair,” said Lucy reproachfully.

The brother and sister had a long ride, each on a little tricycle; and Punch, who was in attendance, could not have been prouder of his little master and mistress if they had owned the whole State of California and part of Mexico.

Jimmy usually reproved Lucy for “doddlin’ round and wiggling so;” but was very patient to-day, and said, “You do pretty well—for a girl! Sometimes you do go so awful slow that it tires me all out to keep up with you. Now see me!”

And away he spun alone on his little wheel, his sister gazing after him in wonder, admiration, and despair.

They had both planned to give the baby a “Fourthy July” ride in his own private carriage, to the tune of,—

But objections were made to this. Eddy was young and tender, and could not stand the jolting.

“H’m! boys can stand ’most anything,” said Jimmy. “You’d think he was a girl, to hear ’em talk!”

“Glad he isn’t,” returned Lucy, patting baby’s cheek. “I want him for a little brother. What do I want of a little sister? I’m a little sister myse’f!”

It was time now for dinner. There were two guests in the parlor, Mrs. Alvord and Mrs. Lewis. As Mrs. Alvord took Jimmy-boy’s hand, she said,—

“May I kiss you on your cheek, Master James? You don’t know how I wanted to kiss you this morning!”

Jimmy offered both cheeks with a blush and a smile. He was proud and happy to be admired by this sweet lady; and he was sure, too, that she had told, or was going to tell, his mamma all about his call at “the yellow house by the corner” with Gilly Irwin.

“I am glad to know you too, Master Jimmy-boy,” said Mrs. Lewis, a tall lady with tiny white curls about her face. “Mrs. Alvord and I love little children; but we have none at our house, and your mamma has five. I’m going to ask her if she can’t spare us one,—you or Lucy or the baby. Which do you think she would give away?”

Jimmy knew very well by the twinkle in the lady’s eye that this was only said in sport. He reflected a moment, then replied,—

“It’s polite to give away the largest pieces and things; so I think mamma ought to give me!”

Both the ladies laughed, and thought this a bright answer. Jimmy felt rather proud of it himself, and looked around to see if mamma had heard it. But Mrs. Dunlee was not in the parlor.

She had stolen into her husband’s study just for a moment, to tell him Mrs. Alvord’s story of Jimmy-boy.

“A small thing, to be sure,” said she; “he only gave up seven peppermints!”

“Not a small thing, my love,” returned Mr. Dunlee. “It shows that the boy has character. I am as happy about it as you.”

Jimmy thought it a remarkably pleasant dinner-party. There was maccaroni soup, which reminded Lucy at once of the singular sort of feather which “that Yankee Doodle boy” had stuck in his cap.

“This is Yankee Doodle soup!” said she in a loud whisper to her brother, who nearly choked from trying not to laugh.

Sister Kyzie scowled darkly. When would Lucy learn not to whisper at table? How often must she be told to move her spoon away from, and not towards, herself in taking soup?

When the dessert came on, strange to say, it was that same “Fourth-of-July-Washington-pie,” no longer brown and ragged, but shining as white as the far-off mountains at Christmastide. What had Vendla done to it? And why did mamma smile every moment? Was she thinking how much fairer the great cake looked now in this creamy covering? Jimmy knew she was not thinking of the cake!

After dinner he entertained Aunt Vi and Mr. Sanford on the veranda by firing off a round of crackers.

“Jimmy, Jimmy!” pleaded his aunt at last. “If you’ll only be quiet a moment, I’d like to show you something.”

She opened an old book, and he and Lucy drew near to look at the picture of a man in a military coat and cocked hat.

“I know who that is!” exclaimed Jimmy; “that’s George Washington!”

“Right,” said Mr. Sanford; “the very man you said Vendla made the pie for. And who was he? What did he do?”

“What did he do?” repeated Jimmy. “Why, I know that just as easy!”

Then, after a long pause,—

“Well, anyway he had a hatchet. No, no,” seeing an amused look on Mr. Sanford’s face; “’twas when he was little that he had the hatchet! But afterwards he was—was he the president?”

“Yes; our first president.”

Then Mr. Sanford told as simply as possible what the good man did for us more than a hundred years ago to make us a free nation.

Jimmy listened carefully, and understood a little of it. He was glad to learn that we are free.

“I like to be free,” said he, swinging his arms and throwing out his chest. “I like to have a president ruling over me! Not a queen, you know, away off in England! That would be awful! Why, we should have to sail to England in a ship every time we wanted to ask the queen a question!”

“But here is little Lucy,” said Mr. Sanford, “who looks as if she cares very little about kings and queens. Perhaps she would like to hear the story of the hatchet.”

Then he took her on his knee, and told her how the little George Washington long, long ago had the present of a hatchet, and enjoyed swinging it so well that he cut down a small cherry-tree before he stopped to think.

Lucy was very indignant. She loved trees, and often stood and gazed up at them with awe and delight. She was always angry when she saw a man cut off the tops of eucalyptus trees, even though she knew it was done to make the trees grow broader and handsomer.

“Georgie was a naughty boy,” she said. “I don’t like Georgie!”

“But,” said Mr. Sanford, “I told you how sorry he was. Don’t you think children should be forgiven when they are sorry?”

“I do,” returned Jimmy; “’specially when they ‘can’t tell a lie!’”

Still Lucy was pitiless.

“They won’t have any more cherries at that boy’s house—ever!”

And slipping down from Mr. Sanford’s knee she strode into the house without looking back.

Mr. Sanford was sorry he had told her the story.

“She doesn’t care much if George Washington couldn’t tell a lie,” said Jimmy. “All she cares about is the cherries.”

“Perhaps she thinks,” remarked Aunt Vi,—

After tea the whole family, with the guests, Mrs. Alvord and Mrs. Lewis, met on the veranda to watch the glorious sunset.

“In a few minutes we shall see the fireworks shooting up from the city,” said Mr. Sanford; “and then we’ll light up our own fireworks, Jimmy-boy, in honor of this free country.”

So saying, he made a deep bow to the American flags that hung in clusters all about the veranda.

Jimmy’s eyes shone. He had lived in this free country for five years and a half, and had never known till to-day that it was free! He thought of a bird let out of a cage, of a poor wild gopher let out of a trap. What a splendid thing it is to fly or run, just as one chooses!

He looked at his treasures of fireworks lying beside him on the floor, and smiled. Ever so many boys were coming to see him send up these beautiful flaming pictures into the air. He should tell the boys,—maybe they didn’t know,—he should tell them he did it because this country is free!

Wee Lucy sat on a stool with a book in her hand. She cared very little about freedom or fireworks or “Fourthy July.” She was scowling at a picture in the twilight.

“That’s Georgie; that’s the hatchet-man!” said she wrathfully, and would have picked out both his eyes with a pin if Aunt Vi had not stopped her.

“Well, he’s awful! Bad man! Bad man! Is he alive, Auntie?”

“No, dear; the good Washington died long, long ago.”

Lucy clapped her hands in glee.

“Oh, I’m so glad, so glad!”

“What! Glad the good Washington is dead?”

“Yes; ’cause now he can’t come here. I was afraid he’d come to my house with his hatchet, and cut down some o’ my trees!”

She seemed so relieved that they all laughed; how could they help it? But no one undertook to correct her opinion of the “father of his country.”

“No use talking to her, she’s such a little goose,” thought Jimmy-boy. “Wait till she’s as old as I am, and she’ll know all about it.”

But now the sun had fairly dropped behind the wrinkled mountains; the city fireworks had begun to play, and Jimmy’s fingers were tingling to be at work on his rockets.

What a grand affair! How the neighbors, large and small, were flocking to that veranda, and with them half the dogs in town! Which rose higher and jollier, the human or the canine voices, it would have been hard to tell.

But there were silent guests too. Three horned toads sat near by, fastened by strings to three stakes. Jimmy had tied them before tea, to make sure they would have a good time “seeing the sights.” They did see the sights, and their beady eyes blinked in the light; but if they had a good time they kept it all to themselves.

Whiz! Fizz! Up soared Jimmy’s fireworks, the finest ever had in town. First pin-wheels. But that was nothing; after that began the real business, the grand display.

Each firework was a picture all by itself; and such shouting and clapping you never heard. But last and best of all was a picture, in gold and silver fire, of a large, grand man in a soldier’s uniform and cocked hat.

“’Rah! ’Rah! George Washington!” shouted Jimmy. “Take off your hats! He’s the father of his country.”

Then every hat came off, and every handkerchief was waved, till the noble figure of Washington faded into a shower of gold-dust, and made a path of glory along the evening sky.