THEday began early.
A compact had been made with the little boys the evening before.
They were to be allowed to usher in the glorious day by the blowing of horns exactly at sunrise.But they were to blow them for precisely five minutes only, and no sound of the horns should be heard afterward till the family were downstairs.
It was thought that a peace might thus be bought by a short, though crowded, period of noise.
The morning came.Even before the morning, at half-past three o'clock, a terrible blast of the horns aroused the whole family.
Mrs.Peterkin clasped her hands to her head and exclaimed: "I am thankful the lady from Philadelphia is not here!" For she had been invited to stay a week, but had declined to come before the Fourth of July, as she was not well, and her doctor had prescribed quiet.
And the number of the horns was most remarkable! It was as though every cow in the place had arisen and was blowing through both her own horns!
"How many little boys are there? How many have we?" exclaimed Mr.Peterkin, going over their names one by one mechanically, thinking he would do it, as he might count imaginary sheep jumping over a fence, to put himself to sleep.Alas!
the counting could not put him to sleep now, in such a din.
And how unexpectedly long the five minutes seemed! Elizabeth Eliza was to take out her watch and give the signal for the end of the five minutes, and the ceasing of the horns.Why did not the signal come? Why did not Elizabeth Eliza stop them?
And certainly it was long before sunrise; there was no dawn to be seen!
"We will not try this plan again," said Mrs.Peterkin.
"If we live to another Fourth," added Mr.Peterkin, hastening to the door to inquire into the state of affairs.
Alas! Amanda, by mistake, had waked up the little boys an hour too early.And by another mistake the little boys had invited three or four of their friends to spend the night with them.Mrs.Peterkin had given them permission to have the boys for the whole day, and they understood the day as beginning when they went to bed the night before.This accounted for the number of horns.
It would have been impossible to hear any explanation; but the five minutes were over, and the horns had ceased, and there remained only the noise of a singular leaping of feet, explained perhaps by a possible pillow-fight, that kept the family below partially awake until the bells and cannon made known the dawning of the glorious day,-the sunrise, or "the rising of the sons," as Mr.
Peterkin jocosely called it when they heard the little boys and their friends clattering down the stairs to begin the outside festivities.
They were bound first for the swamp, for Elizabeth Eliza, at the suggestion of the lady from Philadelphia, had advised them to hang some flags around the pillars of the piazza.Now the little boys knew of a place in the swamp where they had been in the habit of digging for "flag-root," and where they might find plenty of flag flowers.They did bring away all they could, but they were a little out of bloom.The boys were in the midst of nailing up all they had on the pillars of the piazza when the procession of the Antiques and Horribles passed along.As the procession saw the festive arrangements on the piazza, and the crowd of boys, who cheered them loudly, it stopped to salute the house with some especial strains of greeting.
Poor Mrs.Peterkin! They were directly under her windows! In a few moments of quiet, during the boys' absence from the house on their visit to the swamp, she had been trying to find out whether she had a sick-headache, or whether it was all the noise, and she was just deciding it was the sick headache, but was falling into a light slumber, when the fresh noise outside began.
There were the imitations of the crowing of cocks, and braying of donkeys, and the sound of horns, encored and increased by the cheers of the boys.Then began the torpedoes, and the Antiques and Horribles had Chinese crackers also.
And, in despair of sleep, the family came down to breakfast.
Mrs.Peterkin had always been much afraid of fire-works, and had never allowed the boys to bring gunpowder into the house.She was even afraid of torpedoes; they looked so much like sugar-plums she was sure some the children would swallow them, and explode before anybody knew it.
She was very timid about other things.She was not sure even about pea-nuts.
Everybody exclaimed over this: "Surely there was no danger in pea-nuts!" But Mrs.Peterkin declared she had been very much alarmed at the Centennial Exhibition, and in the crowded corners of the streets in Boston, at the pea-nut stands, where they had machines to roast the pea-nuts.She did not think it was safe.They might go off any time, in the midst of a crowd of people, too!
Mr.Peterkin thought there actually was no danger, and he should be sorry to give up the pea-nut.He thought it an American institution, something really belonging to the Fourth of July.He even confessed to a quiet pleasure in crushing the empty shells with his feet on the sidewalks as he went along the streets.
Agamemnon thought it a simple joy.
In consideration, however, of the fact that they had had no real celebration of the Fourth the last year, Mrs.Peterkin had consented to give over the day, this year, to the amusement of the family as a Centennial celebration.She would prepare herself for a terrible noise,-only she did not want any gunpowder brought into the house.
The little boys had begun by firing some torpedoes a few days beforehand, that their mother might be used to the sound, and had selected their horns some weeks before.
