[Illustration:  NUMBER 239 ARCH STREET, PHILADELPHIA—­THE HOUSE IN WHICH THE FIRST “STARS AND STRIPES” WAS MADE]

The first public acceptance, recognition, and salute of this flag occurred January 2, 1776, at Washington’s headquarters, Cambridge, Massachusetts.  The name given to this flag was “The Flag of the Union,” and sometimes it was called the “Cambridge Flag.”  The design of this flag was a combination of the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew in a blue field in the upper left-hand corner, bordered by thirteen stripes for the thirteen colonies.

But in the spring of 1777 Congress appointed another committee “authorized to design a suitable flag for the nation.”

This committee seems to have consisted of General George Washington and Robert Morris.  They called upon Mrs. Elizabeth Ross, of Philadelphia, and from a pencil-drawing by General Washington engaged her to make a flag.

This flag, the first of a number she made, was cut out and completed in the back parlor of her little Arch street home.

It was the first legally established emblem, and was adopted by Congress June 14, 1777, under the act which provided for stripes alternately red and white, with a union of thirteen white stars in a field of blue.  This act read as follows:  “Resolved, That the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white:  that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”

=Fourth of July=

This is the greatest secular holiday of our country, its observance being sanctioned by the laws of every State.  The birthday of our liberty would be a hard one to fix, but by common consent the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence is the one observed.  The use of powder to celebrate the day is gradually going out on account of the large number of lives annually lost through accidents.  It is known officially as Independence Day.

=A STORY OF THE FLAG=

BY VICTOR MAPES

When the Fourth of July came, we had been abroad nearly two months, and during that time I think we had not seen a single American flag.  On the morning of the Fourth, however, we walked out on the Paris boulevards, and a number of flags were hanging out from the different American shops, which are quite frequent there.  They looked strange to us; and the idea occurred to Frank, for the first time, that the United States was one of a great many nations living next to one another in this world—­that it was his own nation, a kind of big family he belonged to.  The Fourth of July was a sort of big, family birthday, and the flags were out so as to tell the Frenchmen and everybody else not to forget the fact.

A feeling of this nature came over Frank that morning, and he called out, “There’s another!” every time a new flag came in view.  He stopped two or three times to count the number of them in sight, and showed in various ways that he, America, and the American flag had come to a new understanding with one another.