FOURTH OF JULY.
"Well," said Aunt Mary, "so the Fourth of July is here again. How many fingers do you expect it to leave you with, Tommy?"
"Ten," answered Tommy, promptly. "I didn't know there was anything about the Fourth of July to make extra fingers sprout out on a boy's hand."
"There isn't anything about it that is apt to increase the number of a boy's fingers; but there is something about it that makes it a good time for a boy to get rid of any extra or superfluous fingers he may have. Bursting cannon and big fire-crackers are very serious things for fingers."
"Well, I haven't any fingers that I want to get rid of," said Tommy.
"Of course you know what the Fourth of July commemorates?" remarked Aunt Mary.
"The signing of the Declaration of Independence," answered Tommy, promptly.
"Yes. Now suppose it had been signed the 15th of January, what sort of a Fourth of July do you suppose that would have made?"
"Too cold—snow would put out the fire-crackers," replied Tommy.
"Just what Thomas Jefferson said," returned Aunt Mary. "Charles Carroll of Carrollton wanted to sign it on the 15th of January, but Jefferson said, 'That's no time for fire-crackers. The snow will make 'em sputter and go out. We owe something to posterity.'"
"Now, Aunt Mary," broke in Tommy, "I believe you—"
"Listen," went on Aunt Mary. "Listen, and learn about history. 'I think it will do well enough,' said Charles Carroll of Carrollton. 'Fire-crackers are dangerous things. Let posterity go sleigh-riding on the glorious 15th of January, and make a noise by cracking the whip. Besides, Thomas A. Edison will soon invent snow-proof fire-crackers.'"
"Aunt Mary—"
"Don't interrupt me, Tommy. 'No,' said Jefferson, 'September is the time. We'll sign it on the 27th of September. Think of the glorious 27th! How the cannon will boom, and the rockets whiz, and—' 'I won't agree to put it off a moment beyond the 22d of February,' said Charles Carroll of Carrollton. 'That won't do,' answered Thomas Jefferson. 'That's the birthday of the father of his country. Two holidays rolled into one wouldn't be the thing. People would celebrate too hard. I'm willing to make it the 13th of August.' 'Let's settle on the 10th of March,' replied Charles Carroll of Carrollton. 'Thirty-first of July,' said Jefferson. 'Fourteenth of April,' answered Carroll. They finally compromised on the 4th of July."
"What history did you study?" asked Tommy, as the best way of exposing his aunt's romancing.
"All of the good ones," she answered. "Smith's, and Brown's, and Thompson's, and Robinson's, and Jones's. Wherever I found a good fact I picked it up. I was always very fond of facts when I went to school. Did you ever hear about the dispute Thomas Jefferson and Charles Carroll of Carrollton had when they came to write and sign the Declaration of Independence?"
"No," said Tommy, wondering what his aunt would say next.
"They had quite a little tiff. Jefferson, you see, wanted to have it written on a typewriter, and—"
"But, Aunt, the typewriter wasn't invented then."
"That's just what Charles Carroll of Carrollton told him. But Jefferson insisted on calling in the janitor, and having it invented while they waited. 'Posterity can never read my handwriting,' said Jefferson. 'Besides, my fountain-pen won't work to-day; you know how it is with these fountain-pens—some days ink will shoot out of them like water out of a garden hose, and other times you can't get it out with a corkscrew.'"
"Why didn't Charles Carroll of Carrollton tell Jefferson that fountain-pens weren't invented either?" asked Tommy.
"I don't think he knew it. A great many people then thought that fountain-pens were invented. And then they talked a long time, and Thomas Jefferson tried to get Benjamin Franklin to set it up in type and print it, but he said he had to go fishing with his kite that afternoon for electricity and so couldn't; and then the others sided in with Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and Jefferson had to write it after all, with a quill pen, and with sand to dry the ink with instead of blotting-paper, because the man who had promised to invent blotting-paper had joined the army and gone off to fight the British. So you see, Tommy, the men that wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence had their troubles. But you ought to be thankful that they did it in July instead of January."
Tommy thought a moment, and then said, "Yes, I am; but if they'd done it about six weeks earlier it would have given us a holiday while there was school, and I think that's a pretty good time for holidays."