“I MEAN to have the best time this Fourth of July that I ever had in my
life,” said the Big Boy. Then all the other big boys clustered round
him to hear what the good time was to be, and the little boy sighed
and wished he were big, too. The big boys did not tell him what they
were going to do, but I know all about it, so I can tell. They made a
camp in the Big Boy’s room, which is out in the barn. One boy brought
a comforter, and another brought a pair of blankets; and there was an
old spring mattress up in the loft, so that with the Big Boy’s own bed,
which could hold two (if you kept very still and didn’t kick the other
fellow out), they did very well indeed. The Big Boy’s mother, knowing
something of boys, had set out a lunch for them, crackers and cheese,
and gingerbread and milk, so there was no danger of starvation.
Of course they were busy in the early part of the evening, buying
their firecrackers and torpedoes, their fish-horns and all their noisy
horrors (for you must understand that this was the night before the
Glorious Fourth); but by nine o’clock they were all assembled in the
barn, ready to have the very best time in the world. First they ate
some lunch, and that was good; then they thought they would take a
nap, just for an hour or so, that they might not be sleepy when the
time came. Two of them lay down on the Big Boy’s bed, and two on the
old spring mattress, and two on the floor; but it did not make much
difference where they began their nap, for when the boys’ mother took a
peep at them about ten o’clock, she found them all lying in a heap on
the floor, sound asleep, though the Thin Boy was groaning in his sleep
because the Fat Boy was lying across his neck.
Suddenly the Big Boy awoke with a start, and looking at his watch,
found that it was half past eleven. Hastily he roused the sleepers, and
there was a hurrying and scurrying, a hunting for caps, a snatching
up of horns and slow-match. Then softly they stole down the barn
stairs, and away they went to the old church, and up they climbed into
the belfry. The sexton had left the door unlocked, having been a boy
himself once; so there they waited till twelve o’clock came. Ah! what
a grand time they had then, “ringing the bells till they rocked the
steeple;” but it only lasted an hour, and then there was all the rest
of the night. They went here and they went there, and when they grew
hungry they went back to the barn and finished the lunch; and then they
tried to go to sleep again, but they kept falling about so, it was no
use, so they waited till they thought their own houses would be open,
and then they went home, and the Big Boy crept into his bed and slept
till noon.
But the Little Boy woke up at six o’clock, and jumped up like a lark,
and got his torpedoes and firecrackers, and was very cheerful, though
he did sigh just once when he thought of the big boys. He turned the
gravel-sweep into a battle-field, and made forts and mines for the
firecrackers, and then he cracked and snapped and fizzed and blazed—at
least the firecrackers did—all the morning. He only burned his fingers
twice and his trousers five times, and that was doing very well. He
had a glorious day; and his mother thought—but neither the Little Boy
nor the Big Boy agreed with her—that the best part of all was the good
night’s sleep beforehand.