"It was light enough for my eyes, and I could make out a number of curious-shaped little packages still in the box—some round and long, some round and short, and some flat like wheels or six-cornered, and some coiled around and around like little snails, and nothing among them like anything I had ever seen before. I couldn't imagine how those things could make stars, and was just about to take out one and examine it when there was a bright light and the Roman candles began to work and send up beautiful round stars right above our heads, first one way and then another, lighting up everything quite plainly. Just then Mr. Man's little boy must have looked in my direction, for he shouted right out, 'Oh, look! there's a young coon!' and, without stopping to think, being so young himself, he aimed his Roman candle in my direction, and shot those stars straight at me. One big yellow one just grazed my left ear and scared me so I couldn't move at first. Then a big red one singed my back fur, and I commenced to dodge and get in motion. And just then a big blue star-ball came straight toward me. I thought I was gone then, but I wasn't. It didn't hit me; it fell short and went in the box.
"Well, there must have been ever so many of the best stars wasted that night. Before I could get fairly turned around those curious things I had seen in there began to go off. You never heard such a popping and fizzing and spluttering and banging, and you never could imagine such a flashing and flaming and wriggling of dangerous materials as that blue star-ball started.
I NOTICED A SCARED CHICKEN
"Of course I didn't stay right there to enjoy it. About the first pop that came from that star-box I was headed in the other direction and up a tree, where I could get a good view and be out of range. It was most exciting. Every minute something new came out of that box—fiery snake things, and whirlers, and all sorts of fancy stuff, and things like bouquets of flowers, which I suppose would have been up there in the sky now for us to look at, if they hadn't been wasted so recklessly; and Mr. Man and his family all came running with pails of water, but were afraid to get near enough to put it on, until the star-stuff was nearly used up; and just then I noticed a scared chicken on the limb next mine, so I took it and went home, though it wasn't a very good one, being picked out in that careless way.
"I told my folks about seeing Mr. Man and his folks making the stars, but they didn't think much of my story. When I showed them the singed place on my back they said that I had probably been shot at, as I deserved to be for trying to borrow a chicken before Mr. Man had gone to bed, and that I had imagined or made up the rest. But I hadn't, for it all happened just as I have been telling it now. I don't know whether Mr. Man makes stars on the Fourth of July every year or not. I could have gone back to see if I had wanted to, but I didn't want to. I saw him do it once, which was plenty; and if he hadn't wasted a lot of his stuff we would have some finer stars than any I can see up there now."
Mr. Rabbit smoked thoughtfully a minute. Then he said: "That is certainly a very remarkable story, but I can't believe that those were real stars that Mr. Man and his family were making. I think those must all have been just shooting stars, and meteors, and comets and such things, that are always flying about and changing. There is a story in my family that accounts for the other stars, and seems more probable, because it happened a very long time ago, when 'most anything could be true and when all the first things began."
"Very likely," said the 'Coon, "but what I saw was plenty true enough to suit me, while it lasted."