The globe-independent. (Hagerstown, Md.) 1943-19??, 1946-07-04


perspiring, but willing, town band.
In the evening we could hardly
wait for the sun to go down and the
festivities to begin. The Catherine
wheels were fixed on the trees and
the rocket trough carefully set up in
the spot in our front yard that, after
some rather spectacular trial and
error attempts, had proved through
the years to be the correct angle for
avoiding any possible fire. The fire.
works were piled at the end of the
porch and at long last dusk came and
the fun started
After the fireworks, the ice cream
and cake were served and then there
was music. On my grandparents
street there was a variety of real
musical talent, so usually people
came and sat on the surrounding
lawns from blocks around. The piano
was always moved to the front
porch and after the solos and quar-
tettes there was real community
sing.
Particularly vivid in my mind is
the now-famous Fourth when my
grandfather fired the cannon in the
front yard. "Whistling Dick" as the
gun was known, was my GRANDPA
theirs cannon through the Civil War.
He adored it and when he came
home the cannon came with him
you could, apparently, get by with
that sort of thing in his war. At any
rate the cannon became a village in
stitutiOn. When not being hauled
off to the commons to fire a twenty
one gun salute to celebrate every
Republican victory, the gun, wrap
ped practically in cotton wool, re-
posed in the old billiard room, and
the old gun-carriage, under the lilac
tree, was my favorite spot for sum-
mer reading,
On election nights grandmother
was kept busy for many a weary
hour sewing gun powder in flannel
bags against the happy hour when
my grandfather and his trusty gun
crew got busy with ramrod sight
and lanyard to give the countryside
for miles around the benefit of
Whistling Dicks booming announce
ment of a Republican triumph.
There was the night of the Wilson
Hughes election, | well remember,
when, without the dubious benefit of
! radio, it appeared at midnight that
Mr.. Hughes was victorious a nd
''Whistling Dick" roared accord
ingly. Next morning it was quite a
different story and my grandfather
refused to appear in public for some
! thing like three weeks.
But to return to Whistling Dick
and the front yard. My cousin Paul,
only grandson in the family, had ar
! rived from Duluth for the Great
Day. Being the only male heir he
had a way of writing his own ticket
in our grandparents home and on
this occasion his ticket happened to
call for few rounds from Whistling
Dick to top off the fireworks, Reacting
somewhat in the manner of Thur
Der character, this struck my grand
parent as an interesting, practical
and patriotic idea. - There was in
fact, a touch of Thurber about that
whole mad evening.
| The doting grandmother sat down
and began sewing the gunpowder in
flannel bags again and the neighbors
came oVer-fools that they we're
and helped wheel Whistling Dick
into the center of the lawn where,
he doomed menacingly through the
rockets red glare.
When the last frecracker was shot,
the last Roman candle had pulled
out, and the last Catherine wheel
had spun itself to fixing oblivion,
the temporary gun crew, with Paul
of course, assisting, went into action
and Whistling Dick gave forth with
the first mighty roar. The reverbra-
tons were accompanied by the
sound of tinkling glass and horrid
howls from the neighborhood babies
and the neighborhood dogs-all the
dogs had been hiding under houses
for days, but this was too much and
they added their voices to the din.
Everyone was so deafened that the
tinkling glass didn't make much i'm
preston and five more rounds were
fired, with the net result that there
wasn't window left whole, not only
in the neighborhood, but in all that
end of town, and few indeed were the
pictures that remained on the walls