Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1891-07-02
DANBURY NEWS MAN.
A COUNTRY VILLAGE ON JULY THE
FOURTH.


FOURTH.
The Presence of Noise and the Absence
of Cats Distinguish the Anniversary Of
the Nations Independence-The Boys
Perpetuate the Day.
There are two conspicuous features
which go to distinguish the glorious an
niversary of our national independence
from any other holiday, and these are
the presence of noise and the absence Of
cats. The noise commences when the
boys wake up. The cats commence
when they wake up. We don't know
where the cats 60 We only know they
CO. Sometimes we have thought they
may dissolve in the air, and ascend into
space until the racket is over. But this
is merely speculation. Dogs are unlike
cats Dogs are more like women; trust
ing, confding, and hoping for the best.
So dogs stay around to see what's going
on. Quite frequently they find out.
The Fourth of July was not made for
the boys, but they have got hold Of it.
1t is a boys day as completely and thor
oughly as if they had been measured for
it. No man thinks of the day in its true
significance. If he ponders on and
speaks Of the heroism, the devotion, the
glory of the men of rs and is drinking
man, he will be as drunk as fiddler
within an hour, if not already there. No
man cares aught for the day unless he
keeps a saloon or makes ice cream or
sells fireworks. If he doesn't go on a
picnic he stays home and hoes his garden.
1t is the boy who meets and escorts in
the day, who waits upon it while it
stays and sees it off at the last. AS long
as there are boys there will be a glorious
anniversary of our national independ-
ence. When they play out it viii play
out. There is nothing man forgets so
easily and completely as that he was
once boy. The man who is awakened
out of sound sleep at dawn Of the
Fourth and swears at the noise, who is
startled by an unexpected cracker or
deafened by an unexpected cannon and
calls the whole thing a piece of con
demned foolishness that ought to be
swept from the face of the earth, was
once boy himself, and the noisiest, the
earliest, the latest and the most internal
of all the boys in his gang. But you
wouldn't think SO to hear him fume and
fret and scold now.
1t would be amusing if it were not SO
painful to hear parents advise the boys
to go to bed early on the night of the
third, so as to get rested by good sleep.
Sleepl What an insane ideal Sleep
on the night of the third Are parents
mad?
Does man want to trade off leg Of
flesh for one of wood? Does a cockroach
ask for paper of carpet tacks? Does an
oyster yearn for porous plaster? Then
why should boy want sleep on the
night before the Fourth? What he wants
is powder to explode, windows to rattle
and an aged lady in the neighborhood to
faint dead away. If he should want any
thing else he will mention it. If you
would have him perfectly happy ON this
day of all days ask him not to sleep, ask
him 1z0t to wash himself.
There are two seasons of the day
which, by their livid contrast to each
other, form epochs. One Of these is at
10 a. M, the other is at p. m.
Danbury at 10 a. m. presented re-
markably lively appearance Many Of
the stores were closed, but this was not
noticeable in the life and animation
everywhere about. The main street was
full of people. Teams were running to
and fro. Boys were busy comparing
notes, laying in further supplies, and
firing off those already on hand Folks
after cream and lemons, women in white,
men with baskets on picnics bent, were
hurrying here and there, and the scene
they made was lively one indeed.
At 3 p. m. radical change had swept
over the village. Both nature and hu-
manity were exhausted, and Danbury lay
pulseless in the glare Of the sun. The
main street was comparatively deserted;
the private streets were entirely so. Here
and there an irrepressible boy let off a
cracker or little cannon, but these
sounds, by their'rarity and brevity, only
made the silence more oppressive.
A wandering man, appearing as if he
had just been showed out of a graveyard,
was to be seen moving aimlessly about.
The stone flags and cutters were full of
debris Of the burnt crackers, fruit leav-
ings, peanut shells and cigar stumps.
The sun poured straight down in a
binding glare Of heat upon blistering
stones, gray dust Of roads and yellow
gravel of walks.
The town was like a man who had
been kicking up Old Ned to his hearts
content and had now laid down, and
didn't want anybody to touch him.
From Danbury Boom. Copyrighted by
Lee & Shepard; published by permission.