The Knights of the White Shield eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 202 pages of information about The Knights of the White Shield.

The Knights of the White Shield eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 202 pages of information about The Knights of the White Shield.

Aunt Stanshy had said to him at the dinner-table, “I don’t want you to fire any more crackers to-day.”

Charlie’s chin went down.

“Why?”

“Because there is danger of setting fire to something.  The wind is warm and dry.”

Charlie’s chin now went up.

“It was warm and dry, but the wind has just changed, and it is coming in from the sea, and it is damp and misty.”

“But, that wont put out fires.”

Charlie’s chin now dropped again and dropped to stay.  He went up stairs and, having a knack at rhyming, wrote a string of lines and put them in his pocket.  Sid had found out the contents of Charlie’s pocket when it had been emptied in behalf of the bun fund, and at the “collation” in the woods, he concluded his speech with these words:  “I learn that the Hon. Charles Pitt Macomber, who has been forbidden to fire off crackers, has some poetry, and I will ask him to read it I would only add that freemen must stand for their rights.”  Cheers were now given for “the poet of the day.”  Charlie stood up and read these lines, which were subsequently found by Aunt Stanshy in the pocket of his pants, for these needed the help of her needle after the great and fatiguing duties of the Fourth.  The name and age of the author, Charlie had been particular to place over the poetry.  We give the lines exactly as they appear in the original now in our possession.

THE GLORIOUS FOURTH.

By C.P.  MACOMBER, (nine years.)

  “Hurrah for the Glorious Fourth of July,
  When sky-rockets mount to the sky,
  When fire-crackers are whizzing so fine,
  And all is Majesty Grandeur an’ sublime.

  “If I could have the whole day to myself,
  I would fire off crackers all day like an elf,
  The Giant Torpedoes would fall to the ground,
  And all would come down with a terrible sound.

  “What good are little paper caps? 
  I would not give two ginger snaps,
  They do not make a noise worth hearing,
  But fire-crackers, the ladies are fearing.”

If Charlie should write this again, he would change the above, but it is too late to alter now, and we give it as preserved in our note-book.  Furious applause followed this ebullition of poetic genius.

The collation was followed by the raft-race.  The ditch that ran beside the railroad embankment widened in one place to forty feet.  Half a dozen logs were here floating.  The keeper of the great seal had brought with him a hammer and a handful of nails, and seeing on his way several strips of board, he had picked them up and now nailed the six logs together in pairs, making three rafts.

“There will now be a race between our first treasurer, our sentinel, and the keeper of the great seal,” pompously announced Sid.  “This will be the first race.  I expected Tony and the governor would compete, but they have gone home.  The Fourth was too much for them.”

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The Knights of the White Shield from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.