Free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1888-1908, 1902-07-05
A Fourth of July Confession


lieve what you say"
Indeed do, Miss Darlington.
Fourth of July is a farce? Then
you really think that?"
Il mean to say that all the money
spent in firing of crackers and burn
ing rockets has no useful purpose.
1T expresses our feelings, l think,
and that is all anything can do for us
in this world
It do not agree with you. There are
many simpler and more sensible ways
of giving expressions to our emotions
than by filing the air with noise and
smoke. 1t is childish. Grown people
ought to be able to show their patriot
ism in a more sensible way.
Fudge. You are getting as dry and
uninteresting as those old books you
bury yourself in most of the time L
believe in life Books are all we'll
enough in their way, but that is gener-
ally a very tiresome way.
The hot blood surged into the face
of the young man at the retort. He
turned his gaze full on the girl at his
side, but she was already turning
away, calling softly to a robin hopping
in the shade of an old apple tree that
grew beside the gate leading into the
farmhouse grounds.
'Millyi" he called, reproachfully-
wait till George Lounsbery comes
home from New York tomorrow and
you'll see what the Fourth of July
means to man with real red blood IN
his veins. He was up last year and
brought more than hundred dollars
worth of fireworks. / don't believe
any one went to bed that night at all
The sky was filled with red fire and
realized for the first time what it
meant to be an American"
You mean the son OF Farmer
Lounsbery, suppose?"
Yes He's a great man now, al
though he was born and grew up in
this illiterate neighborhood.
Miss Darlington, if you please, Mr..
Shakespeare Does your dingy old
leather-covered books tell you that a
young man has the right to address a
young lady that he met only four
weeks ago with as much familiarity as
though she was his sister,
The girl tossed her pretty head with
an air that might have been learned
in the court of queen. although she
had little knowledge of the ways of
the world outside of Mohawk Valley.
But was she not a woman, young.
pretty, proud, whimsical-as most
pretty young women are? And what
need had she for instructions In the
art Of coquetry? To the serious young
student who had come into the neigh
borhood with no other idea than that
in the public school she had knowledge
enough and to spare. He loved her,
of course There was no escape from
that. She knew it, too. as well as
though he had told her so with all the
impassioned fervor of a Romeo. But
he had not told her so. How could he
when she met every attempt of his to
utter what filed his heart with good
natured railery.
'Is he's Mr.. Lounsbery a friend
of yours?"
"a friend of mine? Indeed he is. 1
have known him ever since l was a
child. He is a great man now. Cash
Ter in a bank in the city and trusted
with tons of money. Wait till you see
how things will move when he ar
rives.'
He did wait, although with no pleas
ant anticipations. And that night he
saw the rockets streaking across the
sky and heard the honest country folk
cheer the neatly dressed. smooth-spok-
en- young man who set off whole pack
ages of f1re-crackers with far less
thought that one of the wealthiest
among them would have struck a
~ Ill -,
the last red fame had faded out of the
sky, the last pin-wheel had spit out it's
spiteful little life, the last bunch OF
f1re-crackers popped and danced over
the singed and trampled lawn. Arnold
walked home alone through the woods,
carrying the burnt end of a single
cracker tightly clutched in his hand.
After all had he not been right
when he told Milly that all this cele-
bration was noise and fury, signify
ing nothing?" She had boosted to him
that Mr.. Lounsbery would bring hun
dred dollars worth of fireworks from
the city to voice the patriotism Of the
neighborhood. And her boast had
been made good. A hundred dollars!
Why, that was more than he wa5 to
get for the three months term of
teaching in the Randall district school.
A hundred dollarsi What could he
not have done with the money that
had been consumed in an evening, for
the glory OF patriotism? He thought
Of the long, dreary struggle behind
him, and the dark, dreary, tedious
days ahead and a great bitterness
clutched at his heart and an unfamIl-
lar oath rose in his throat and de-
manded that he give it tongue. VIVA.
was all this boosted liberty If it
brought nothing to one and so much to
another? Why should this young .soun-
try boy be favored by fate so that the
best positions in great city were his
for the asking, while he. the student,
the scholar, the man with a real pur-
pose and high aim, was left to win
his way among such hopeless surround
ings2 Hopeless. indeed For she who
had wakened in his heart new aspira-
tons. made even the frowning future
bright with promise. she had turned
from him with scarcely word to Join