On this great day we are accustomed to leave our business to hired men,
and burn with patriotism, and ginger pop, fill ourselves with patriotic
ferver, and beer, shout the battle cry of freedom, and go home when the
day is over with our eye-winkers burned off, and to sleep with a
consciousness that a great duty has been performed, and that we have got
bank notes to pay on the morrow. For three hundred and sixty-four days in
the year our patriotism is corked up and wired down, and all we can do is
to work, and acquire age and strength. On the 4th of July we cut the wire,
the cork that holds our patriotism flies out, and we bubble and sparkle
and steam, and make things howl. We hold in as long as we can, but when we
get the harness off, and are turned into the pasture, we make a picnic of
ourselves, with music all along the line.