Part 15

“Thank you, I can get along very well; you needn’t help,” Miss Lucinda said in grim accents of dismissal but the boy did not move.

“I s’pose you’re pretty busy,” he ventured presently.

“Well, yes, rather,” Miss Lucinda answered shortly.

“Do you usually have a real good time Fourth o’ July?” he went on.

Miss Lucinda gasped. “Well, no. I can’t say I do,” she answered in mournful truthfulness.

“Now that’s funny,” the boy said, in a surprised tone. “Seem’s though the country’d be an awful nice place to have a good time in, Fourth o’ July. Mebbe it’s ’cause you never had nobody to cel’brate with; but you will this year. You’ll have a real nice time, too; I always enjoy Fourth o’ July.”

Miss Lucinda gave a feeble sigh. “What do you usually do Fourth o’ July?” she asked, with the desire to learn her coming fate.

“Well, last year I had one bunch o’ firecrackers that got fired off the very first thing. I thought mebbe this year I’d earn ’nough money to buy two bunches; d’you think I could?”

“Well, really, I don’t know,” Miss Lucinda said.

“And last year I went to see the percession, and the crowd jammed me, and I didn’t see nothin’; but this year they’re goin’ to have a percession out here, and that feller asked me to be in it. D’you suppose I could?”

“I don’t know,” Miss Lucinda answered again.

“They’re goin’ to have reg’lar uniforms, red, white, and blue”—evidently the boy took this as half consent—“and it’s goin’ to be jest great. I s’pose it’d be a good deal o’ trouble to make me a uniform, seein’s you’re so busy?”

“A soldier suit? Dear me, yes, I should say so!” There was no doubt now in Miss Lucinda’s tones.

The boy drew a deep breath as he rose to go. “All right,” he said cheerfully, “I’ll tell the fellers; p’r’aps they’ll let me march, jest the same.”

When supper-time came and Miss Lucinda rang her bell again out the door, she saw the boy coming along the path from the barn, helping Joshua, the man-of-all-work, bring in the brimming pail of milk.

“Supper is ready,” Miss Lucinda said, and this time the boy washed his hands without special order.

“Say,” he cried, waving the roller, “Josh’s goin’ to teach me how to milk, and you won’t have to hire him any more. I kin do everything’s well as not, can’t I, Josh?” But Joshua had, fortunately, gone and did not hear this threat to usurp his position.

“Well, you do have orful good meals,” he said, sitting down opposite Miss Lucinda’s handsome, severe figure. “I’m orful hungry, but I did have the dandiest time to-day you ever heard of. The potatoes didn’t roast very well, but the fire burned like fun. My Jiminy—”

“James!” called Miss Lucinda in an awful voice.

James opened his innocent eyes and looked at her, then fell to eating with renewed vigor, and it was some time before he mustered courage to finish his recital.

But when he came out into the kitchen and watched her moving back and forth in the dusky light, Miss Lucinda somehow felt herself moved to open conversation.

“You didn’t eat so very much for supper, James.”

“No, marm,” James answered promptly. “Don’t you remember them potatoes? I was a-payin’ for ’em.”

“Mercy on us!” cried Miss Lucinda, and she went to the dining-room and brought from the table the currant pie, of which the boy, to Miss Lucinda’s amazement, had eaten only two pieces.

He ate the third generous slice she gave him, and again sat still, watching her with round, admiring eyes as she moved about.

“I think it’s about time for you to go to bed now, James,” his guardian said presently, and James rose promptly.

“Would you mind calling me Jim? It sounds kinder homesick to be called James,” he said, with sudden wistfulness engendered, even in his boyish spirit, by the shadows and the newness of the place.

“Good-night, Jim,” Miss Lucinda responded; but Jim still stood looking at her with serious eyes.

“My aunt useter kiss me good-night. You don’t exactly look like the kissin’ kind, and I ain’t neither, but—but I didn’t know, seein’ ’s you’re so good to me, but—p’r’aps”—he flushed and shifted himself from one foot to the other.

Miss Lucinda flushed, too, and looked greatly embarrassed, but hers was no stony heart to refuse so gallant a suitor; she stooped and kissed him awkwardly and flutteringly somewhere upon his forehead or hair; but when she would have felt her duty over, he suddenly seized her in an impetuous hug. He went upstairs quickly, and Miss Lucinda sat down in her little rocking-chair with hot, red cheeks, and something deeper than embarrassment brought a new light into her clear eyes.

“I think he tries hard to be a good boy,” Miss Lucinda said to the minister when he next called, “but he does a great many things that are rather startling, and now and then he says something he oughtn’t to.”

“Yes?” the minister said, in kindly interest.

“The very first day he got here, he swore at the table.” The minister looked horrified. “Of course I spoke of it right off and he hasn’t done it again. He was kind of excited about playing Indian, and I don’t suppose he really meant it; he said”—the minister reddened and looked away, and Miss Lucinda flushed—“he said ‘Jiminy.’” The minister drew out his handkerchief and coughed slightly. “But, as I say, he hasn’t said anything since, and I think I could get along very well if Fourth of July wasn’t coming so soon. But what do you think? He wants a soldier suit, and firecrackers, and all sorts of things. If only he hadn’t come till after the Fourth! I never did approve of it. I always did think it was a heathenish holiday,” and Miss Lucinda broke off feelingly.

After the minister had gone Miss Lucinda started to go to the village store. Jim usually did the errands, but this was something that had been overlooked, and he was at play, out of calling distance.

On Miss Lucinda’s return, as she came through the lane by a shorter road, she heard voices in the field beyond; the speakers were hidden by a hedge, but she recognized the tones as Jim’s and his playfellow’s across the street.

“Say, can’t you march?” said a wheedling voice.

“No, I guess not,” Jim’s voice answered, a trifle dolefully.

“Why not? Won’t she make you a suit?”

There was a little pause before Jim answered: “Well, I don’t know’s I care ’bout marchin’.”

“H’m! you needn’t say that. It’s cause that stingy old maid won’t make you anything to wear, I know.”

There was a sudden movement on the other side of the hedge. “You call her a stingy old maid again and you’ll see! She’s a handsome lady, she is, and it ain’t none o’ your business if I don’t want to march.”

“H’m! you needn’t git on your ear so dreadful quick. I wouldn’t stand up for anybody that only let me earn money enough to buy two bunches of firecrackers. Why, I’ve got two packages! A great Fourth o’ July you’ll have!”

“I’ve got some more money, but I ain’t goin’ to buy firecrackers; I’m savin’ it for a s’prise. Say, look-a-here, you see, Miss Tibbox ain’t never had a boy ’round, an’ she don’t understand ’bout Fourth o’ July, that’s all.”

Miss Lucinda did not wait to hear the answer, but went swiftly back to the village.

The night before the Fourth, as Jim was going to bed, Miss Lucinda said: “Ain’t you going to march with the boys to-morrow, Jim?”

Jim shook his head and looked at her solemnly. “I ain’t got no suit. The fellers won’t let you march without one. Never mind, I’ve given up lots of things. My aunt wa’nt much of a hand for doin’ things, you know.”

Jim had never asked Miss Lucinda to kiss him good-night since that first time, when he felt so markedly homesick, and certainly she would never have offered to kiss him, so she merely said, as he took his light to go upstairs, “Good-night, Jim.”

But she sat down in her rocking-chair, quite near the dining-room door, with an expectant listening expression on her face. Suddenly there arose a great commotion above, and Jim came tumbling down the stairs with wild shrieks of delight.

“Oh, my gracious! oh, my gracious!” he cried. “Look-a-here, did you do it? Ain’t they butes? I kin march now, can’t I? Oh, my Jimi—my gracious, my gracious!” And he danced about the room, first on one foot and then on the other, waving in one hand a wonderful pair of red, white, and blue trousers, in the other a similarly gorgeous jacket.

Miss Lucinda was really frightened; she was not used to such demonstrations of joy. But Jim stopped his dancing presently, and, throwing his cherished outfit on the floor, he embraced her rapturously, until she gravely extricated herself.

“I’m glad you like it, Jim,” she said a little stiffly.

“Like it!” Jim shrieked, throwing himself about in another wild pantomime. “Like it! Oh, my gracious, I’m ’fraid I shall bust!”

“I think you had better go to bed now,” Miss Lucinda said, after a pause.

Jim gathered up his suit and looked at her anxiously. “Should you mind if I was to git up dreadful early, if I didn’t wake you up?” he asked.

And Miss Lucinda, to her own amazement, found herself replying: “Well, no; but don’t get up too early.”

And after Jim was asleep, and it was time for her to retire, she went softly into his room to lay two packages of firecrackers on the chair beside the gay garments.

Poor Miss Lucinda hid her head under the bed-clothes during the night, and when there came an extra loud explosion thought of Jim. But at breakfast-time he turned up safe and smiling.

“I never had sech a good time in all my life before. Say, Miss Tibbox, did you mean all those firecrackers for me? Well, if you ain’t the nicest woman in the world! I’ve got a s’prise for you, too. Just you wait and see!” and he nodded mysteriously across the table at Miss Lucinda, who felt a vague misgiving.

“Why didn’t you wear your soldier suit?” she asked.

Jim beamed upon her. “Why, I’m a-savin’ it. We don’t march till ten o’clock. You don’t know how much nicer it is to be in a percession than jest to look at it. I wish you could march, too,” he added politely. “But you’ll come out on the piazza and watch us go by, won’t you?”

And Miss Lucinda promised to be on the spot.

If Jim had never passed another such day, it was as wholly unprecedented in Miss Lucinda Tarbox’s calendar. Jim marched by the house as proud as a peacock in his new soldier suit, and raised a cheer to Miss Lucinda so loud and hearty that she retired blushing into the house. Then after dinner there was nothing for Miss Lucinda but to come out on the piazza and watch Jim fire off some of his crackers; and there the poor lady sat cringing and shrinking and trying to smile each time Jim would shout, “That’s the loudest of all!”

But the climax of the day was reached when Jim brought the minister home to supper. How it happened that the minister appeared upon the scene at tea-time, Miss Lucinda could not understand; but when he arrived, and Jim whispered in a loud aside, “I thought p’r’aps he might stay to supper,” there was no alternative but a cordial invitation, which the minister accepted promptly. Miss Lucinda likewise never knew the remarks with which Jim escorted the minister to the house. “She’s the very nicest woman in the world,” he told the minister, “and I think she thinks you’re a pretty nice sort of a chap.” The minister never repeated these compliments of Jim’s to Miss Lucinda.

After tea, Jim’s secret was revealed; he had invested the larger part of his small earnings in fireworks, which he was quite sure Miss Lucinda would enjoy, and he had invited the minister to supper that he might help him set them off. So Miss Lucinda came out on the porch in the darkness, and the minister and Jim paraded about in the neat little garden in front, and proceeded to diminish Jim’s purchases. Presently the minister came up on the piazza and sat down beside Miss Lucinda, for the remaining fireworks could easily be disposed of by Jim. But just as the minister was considering whether the time was propitious for an advancement of his own interests, there came a sudden sharp cry from Miss Lucinda, and he turned to see a line of flame running about the paper belt of the gallant little showman. The minister was quick in his movements, and was down the path and had Jim in his arms and the fire smothered in a few moments, while Miss Lucinda was by his side, sobbing and bending over Jim’s little form.

“Oh, let me see him,” she cried; “the dear child! Is he hurt very badly?”

Jim wriggled a little in the minister’s arms, and opening his eyes, smiled on her. “Now don’t you worry,” he said cheerily, “I ain’t hurt.”

“But I’m ’fraid I’ve spoilt my suit,” he added when the minister had placed him on the lounge in Miss Lucinda’s little sitting-room.

“Oh, never mind the suit!” Miss Lucinda cried, and Jim looked up at her in reproachful surprise.

But it was quite true that he was not hurt, though rather weak from the fright, and presently he came out again, between the minister and Miss Lucinda, to sit on the piazza and watch the neighbors’ fireworks.

Jim, on the little stool at Miss Lucinda’s feet, leaned his head against her knee. “I don’t care, it’s been a fine Fourth o’ July,” he murmured.

“So it has,” echoed the minister; “don’t you think so, Lucinda?” But Miss Lucinda’s only answer was a blush and a consenting silence.

“Do you mind now if I call you aunt?” Jim’s voice asked.

Miss Lucinda laid her hand gently on Jim’s head. “No, dear,” she said softly; “no.”

“You might call me uncle,” suggested the minister.

Jim nodded brightly. “All right,” he said promptly; “then we’ll be a reg’lar family.”

And the new uncle and aunt smiled in the darkness.

VIII

THE NEW FOURTH

OUR BARBAROUS FOURTH

BY MRS. ISAAC L. RICE

(From _The Century Magazine_, June, 1908.)

In his first book, Marcus Aurelius gratefully acknowledges his obligation to Sextus of Chæronea for having taught him to “express approbation without noisy display.” Alas! in all the centuries which have elapsed since the time of this emperor-philosopher, we have not yet learned to appreciate the wisdom of his counsel; and every holiday, in our country, at least, is made the occasion of a strident outburst of hoodlumism. Hallowe’en, Election Day, Christmas, New Year’s, Inauguration Day, and Fourth of July, each witnesses our thoroughfares thronged with shouting and disorderly crowds, provided with every noisy device from the tin trumpet to the dangerous pistol, while shrieks of whistles shrill maddeningly above the street clamor and the booming of bells. Accidents occur, the sick are made worse by these frenzied demonstrations, and the young fail to appreciate the significance of the day which is being so unbeautifully celebrated.

Of all these “noise-fests,” the most shocking is the Fourth of July, and its grim statistics probably furnish a sadder commentary on human folly than that afforded by any other celebration in the world.

I often wonder what would be the emotions of a stranger, quite ignorant of our institutions, if he arrived in our country—“God’s Country,” as we affectionately call it—just before midsummer, and glanced over our great newspapers. After reading some items, such as the following, would he be apt to await a great and glorious anniversary, or the advent of a day of strife and terror?

The horrible Fourth will soon be here.... In all the big cities the Fourth of July is now looked forward to with apprehension and looked back upon with a shudder, and even with horror.

Or,

The Board of Health has established supply stations of tetanus antitoxin throughout the city. The National Volunteer Emergency Service has established field dressing stations in the thickly populated sections. The hospitals also expect their usual busy day.

And then he would read head-lines like these:

THE NATIONAL BATTLE-FIELD CARNAGE BEGINS ON HOLIDAY EVE BLOODIEST FOURTH YET DEATHS AND INJURIES IN FOURTH OF JULY’S WAKE

After our stranger had grasped the fact that this was not the record of a battle or other public calamity, but merely some details regarding the manner in which a great nation commemorates the most solemn event in its history, I doubt whether he would have an exalted opinion of a people who could desecrate so noble a memory by so barbarous an observance.

The fitting celebration of Independence Day is a question on which patriotic Americans are separated into two widely divergent parties, one claiming that it ought to be observed as noisily as possible, the other believing that our national birthday is too glorious an occasion to be marred by din and disorder. Of course we know that even among those who favor a boisterous observance there are many who cannot tolerate it themselves, and escape to the country in order to avoid the tortures of the “awful Fourth”; just as we know that a large proportion of the noise-makers, including the small boy and the big boy, too, is heedless, if not ignorant, of all that our holiday stands for, and thinks of it only as a time when clamor may reign unrestrained.[17]

The figures which indicate the price that we pay for each of our yearly celebrations are so appalling that one would suppose a knowledge of them would be the most powerful deterrent to our annual massacre. This, unfortunately, is not the case. For the past five years, the _Journal of the American Medical Association_ has endeavored to collect statistics setting forth what the celebration of the Fourth costs in life and human usefulness; and although these are admittedly incomplete,—compiled, as they are, almost entirely from newspaper reports instead of from records of hospitals, dispensaries, and physicians,—they form the gravest possible arraignment of the recklessness which is willing to pay such a price for a “jolly day.” They show that during the celebration of five national birthdays, from 1903 to 1907 inclusive, eleven hundred and fifty-three persons were killed, and twenty-one thousand five hundred and twenty were injured! Of the injured, eighty-eight suffered total, and three hundred and eighty-nine partial, blindness; three hundred and eight persons lost arms, legs, or hands, and one thousand and sixty-seven lost one or more fingers. But these figures, startling as they are, convey only a faint idea of the suffering, both physical and mental, which went to swell the total cost of these five holidays; in this we must also include the weeks and often months of anguish of the injured, the suspense of entire families while the fate of some loved one hung in the balance, the horror of a future of sightless years, the pinching poverty now the lot of many because of the death or maiming of the breadwinner.

But putting aside the question of fatalities, of invalidism, of blindness, of penury, the effect on the sick of a long continuance of explosive noises, varying in intensity for days, or even weeks, and deafening for twenty-four hours at least, merits serious consideration. That the return of our “glorious Fourth” is looked forward to with dread by our hospital-sick, as well as by those who are concerned in their care, was made pathetically clear to me last summer when I interviewed the superintendents of almost all our municipal institutions. One and all deplored the needless suffering inflicted on their patients by our barbarous manner of celebration, and begged me to bring the matter to the attention of the Police Department.[18]

In this connection, a letter from Dr. Thomas Darlington, Commissioner of Health, is of interest:

I agree entirely with you in regard to the serious injury inflicted upon patients in the hospitals occasioned by the common practice of exploding firecrackers and torpedoes in the immediate vicinity.

Professor William Hanna Thomson took the same stand when he stated:

I rejoice to hear that your Society for the Suppression of Unnecessary Noise proposes to have measures taken to lessen the explosions of firecrackers and firearms in the neighborhood of our city hospitals on the Fourth of July. Such noises are particularly injurious, both from their nature and their being of an unusual kind, to patients with any high fever, such as typhoid, and it will be a great service to humanity to have them suppressed, if not altogether, as most sane people will acknowledge, yet at least near institutions harboring a variety of patients.

One feature of our celebration which has not yet been touched upon is the cost. Last year, New York City boasted of an outlay of four million dollars, while the country as a whole burned up the huge sum of twenty million dollars in fireworks. Finally, we must add the vast sum lost by conflagrations before we are in a position to realize the whole price that we pay for our day of jollity.

It is interesting to remark how strongly the press is beginning to voice its protest against our “noise-fest”—a protest now largely seconded by public opinion, although a few years ago it would have been regarded as woefully unpatriotic. Here are a few excerpts gathered last July from widely scattered papers, which are unanimous in decrying our present-day observance:

The most ridiculous and senseless celebration of any great national event.—_New York Commercial._

What the connection is between explosives and patriotism, no one has ever undertaken to describe.—_Utica Press._

The people must be educated to appreciate the folly of dynamite as a factor in patriotism.—_Chicago Daily Tribune._

Time to consider how our annual worship of the God of Noise is to be abolished. This blatant and death-dealing Divinity long ago usurped the shrine occupied by Patriotism. Every year we carry and lay on his bloody altars human sacrifices, like the tribute of maidens to the Minotaur—only they are mostly boys. And so, year after year, the “Glorious Fourth” becomes more and more a dread festival of blood and fire and noise, of death and mayhem.—_Minneapolis Journal._

The traditional gunpowder and dynamite orgies of Independence Day are wrong. Firearms and explosives have no place in any sane scheme of city life.—_Cleveland Plain Dealer._

The day on which human folly too frequently runs amuck.... That the achievement of our national independence, brought about through the necessary spilling of great quantities of blood, should be commemorated by the very general loss of life and limb is as unnecessary as it is deplorable.—_Union_ (Manchester, N. H.).

Americans are realizing that noises, maimed and wounded children, and big conflagrations should not be the sequence of the Nation’s birthday.—_Toledo Blade._

What ought to be the most enjoyable day in the calendar, is made a day of general carnage and a day toward which adults look forward with dread and whose passing they look back upon with a sense of mighty relief.—_Pioneer Press_ (St. Paul, Minn.).

It is the money burned up in useless and dangerous explosives that is wasted, serving no better purpose than to leave the city with a headache the morning after.—_Republic_ (St. Louis).

The din ... is hideously vulgar and utterly uncivilized ... discreditable to those who make it and to the civil authorities who permit it.—_Evening Wisconsin_ (Milwaukee).

I fain would haul down the red flag of our modern Fourth of July and, in its place, run up the flag of peace, quietude, rest, contentment, and personal safety.—_Life_ (New York).

The total results of our last “jolly celebration” of Independence Day were 164 killed and 4,249 injured, many of them being maimed for life! Is this method of celebration really worth while?—_Journal Amer. Med. Assn._ (Chicago).