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."
[Illustration: THE FUNNY FOURTH RACKET ON ENGLISH SOIL.]
Another Englishman who had still less understanding of the Cornwallis
matter, but was aware of the annual higeria of Americans to foreign lands
to escape the noise and danger of their national day, remarked: "It's a
providential thing though for the Americans of today that their forebears
did not push their victorious hordes up to the north pole, else they would
have no near-by place to fly to, while their own country is being made too
hot for them."
How long this conversation would have continued it is difficult to say had
it not been for the distressful barking of Colonel Jordon's English
terrier, who rushed in with a long string of firecrackers tied to his
tail.
His first dash was toward Ruth, probably for the reason that she had taken
his part one day when the boys were tormenting him. He would have leaped
into her lap had she not warded him off with the vacant chair by her side.
He leaped into the chair, however, then across the table toward Colonel
Jordon and down on the floor and off to the lower end of the dining room
where the landlady was cowering in mortal terror, as well she might; for
she had on a thin muslin dress and was completely cornered. By that time
the firecrackers were in flame and the result was inevitable. They set
fire to the poor woman's dress and pandemonium reigned. The boarders
rushed to the rescue with cups of tea and coffee, pitchers of water and
milk, rugs and top-coats. She was finally saved with only one leg burned;
Colonel Jordon's dog was so badly hurt that he had to be shot to end his
misery. Little Teddy Bearington who came in unobserved while the confusion
was at its height and was trampled down by hurrying feet, barely escaped
death by suffocation.
But the Bearington boys had enjoyed their celebration. Mr. Bearington paid
the bill the next day and the whole posse beat a retreat across the
Canadian border. They showed signs of disorganization during the remainder
of the heated season; but when the fall political campaign came on, they
were in high feather again--at least Mr. Bearington and the three older
boys. Hardly a day passed that they did not tell how they had celebrated
the Nation's Glorious Day on English soil.