Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1898-11-02
Anticipation and Realization.
HOWARD sAxBY

HOWARD sAxBY.
Have you ever intended to do some
thing big and made complete fizzle
of the whole business?
Some one was writing the other day
II believe it was Jerome) of boy who
got into his head that he could manu-
facture fireworks. He was a clever
youth, and would make a gun out of
an umbrella and gas jet. With half
the garden hose, copper kettle and a
few Dresden china ornaments off the
drawing-room mantlepiece, he would
manufacture a real elegant little foun-
tain for the garden. He could also
make book shelves out of kitchen ta-
bles.
He learned how to dam a stream so
that the water would flow over the
croQuet lawn and how to make red
paint and oxygen gas, together with
many such like commodities useful to
boy. Among other things he learned
| to make fireworks and, after few ex-
plosions, came to make them very we'll
indeed.
| A large party of friends, relatives
and schoolmates were invited to his
fathers house one glorious Fourth Of
July, and for two weeks before hand
the cellar was converted to factory
| for fireworks, and the whole house
smelt of sulphur and gunpowder. By
TIE day before all was in readiness
and samples were tested to make sure
that no accidents should occur on the
following night.
All was found to be perfect. The
rockets rushed heavenward and des-
cended in stars, the Roman candles
tossed their fiery balls into the dark
ness, the pinwheels sparkled and
whirled, the crackers banged and the
serpents hissed. He went to bed
proud and happy boy.
The night of the festival arrived,
and with it the guests. But the fire.
works did not go off. Nobody never
could explain. The laws of nature
seemed to be suspended for that night.
The rockets laid down and died where
they stood. No human nature seemed
able to ignite the serpents. The
crackers gave one bang and collapsed.
The Roman candles mightas we'll have
been sickly parlor matches. The pin
wheels became mere revolving glow
worms. The golden rain" mistook
itself for huge squib and acted ac-
cordingly.
The 'set-piece"-a ship at sea-
showed one mast and the Captain, and
then went out. The little girls gig
gled, the little boys laughed outright,
the aunts and cousins said it was
beautiful, the uncles asked If it was
all over, and the clever little boy crept
upstairs to his little room and cried
his little heart out in the dark.
Hours later, when the crowd had
forgotten him, he stole out agin into
the garden. He sat down amid the
ruins of his hopes and wondered what
could have caused the fasco. Still
puzzled, he drew from his pocket
box of matches and lighting one, held
it to the scared end Of one of the rock
cts he had tried to light in vain four
hours before.
1t smoldered for an instant, then |
shot with swish into the air and |
broke into hundred points of fire.
He tried another and another with the |
same result. He made fresh attempt |
to fire the set-piece Point by point
the whole picture-minus the Captain
and one mast-came out of the night
and stood revealed in all the majesty
Of fame.
Its sparks fell upon the piled-up
heaps of Roman candles, wheels and
rockets that little while before had
refused to burn.
Now they leaped to light in one
grand volcanic eruption. And in
front of the gorgeous spectacle he
stood, with only one consolation-his
mothers hand was in his. The whole
thing was a mystery to him at the
time, but, as he learned to know life
better, he came to understand that it
was only one example of a great and
inexplicable fact ruling human af-
fairs:
YOUR FIREWORKS WON'T GO
OFF WHILE THE CROWD IS