The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-07-03
THE FOURTH,
To the Editor Of the Eagle.

|
1.-The Glorious Fourth will be here, so
| the boy, so the fire-cracker, SO the hZzle
wheel and so Fourth. You will first feel
| their gentle presence about o'clock
tomorrow morning. You have been
strangely wakeful until that hour, but
morpheus has succeeded well at last and
you are blissfully unconscious until The
| sharp report of a Cracker 'gainst the will
dow pane' gently lifts your hair TO a
sitting posture. But you are sleepy, oh.
| how sleepy, so you bless the boy. thank
heaven he is alive and patriotic, turn over,
and are soon sleeping, sweetly sleeping.
| asking in dreams what boys and flies were
| made for and wondering whether there
could be fly paper invented to catch
| boys after 9 o'clock at night, and so
| you dream on. Not so the boy
| he stands Just outside the gate alone; 3
! O'Clock in the morning, no tender parent
| near to protect him from the wrath which
never catches him. Just alone, waiting,
| thinking. AS a result of this deep thought
| he is not satisfied with the commotion
made by his maiden effort and so he ap-
| plies more lasting dose. With pain at
| his heart for the sacrifice; he lights bunch
of the largest dynamite size hurls at the
| window. Without bending a joint you
| raise to your feet face about to the win
dow, but morpheus has "done" you so
soundly that you are still in a waking
nightmare and you fancy ii a cyclone in a
| fit of St. Vitas dance or perhaps its an in
citrate cyclone on drunk, you resolve &c
pay its board at the Kelley institute and
| then it dawns upon you that the author of
| the scene of terror is-what you once were
"a boy. You Will stay up the rest of the
night-you will stay at home
from the celebration tomorrow.
to hate yourself for having once born that
stigmatizing name. Oh how your heart
yearns for that boyl How it also yearns
for your grandmOther's old-fashioned
broadside, wooden slipper. with tacks half
inch long Ornamenting its sole. In other
words, how you would evereudinely ham
mer somebody's darling" if you only had
him in your warm embrace. You fancy
for time you would even take pleasure
in shooting the author of 80 Where is
My Boy Tonight" because you had once
shed tears at hearing it sung. 0 the boys
all right, don't worry about him, better
weep for the innocent old people he is prac-
ticing on. You draw near the window, by
the light of his Crackers" you behold his
face; did you ever see anything like it?
The acme of human delight boiled down
to the strength of concentrated I've. He
sees you, departs satifed, you think
of chase but your better
elephant chasing an eel; you deslst, per-
haps. because the face revealed to you was
that of your own illustrious son whom you
had beeu so carefully training for the mis-
sionary pulpit or the presidents chair.
From past experience you know the folly
of chase, so you posses yourself of the
absent boys sung-shot, station yourself
at the gate and await the next hopeful for
anger is still within you. But it oozes as
you sit there and hear over and above all
your boys howl of delight, a howl so
tainted with origin ality that you are sure
he thinks that no other boy ever thought
of such unique thing as arising at such
an unearthly hour to postpone feline con-
certs and drive away any little nap
thoughtless people might indulge in the
night before the Fourth. You know in
your heart That boys have done these
things for 100 years back, and the noble
sires who administer punishment for such
escapades have but outgrown such tricks,
and taken to cannon and dynamite as an
antidote for the inferior taste in childhood
RETH