"O Charlie! you look like a little vagabond!" exclaimed Hal in despair. "I'm ashamed of you!"
"But I've had such fun, and cakes and candies and fire-crackers and torpedoes! I wish Fourth of July would keep right straight along. I burned one of my fingers, but I didn't mind," declared the patriotic girl.
"Where's Kit?"
"I don't know. Joe was round this morning, but I guess he went to Salem."
"You must come home with me now."
"O Hal! we haven't found all the 'cissers' yet. They're almost as good as fire-crackers."
Several of the children were burrowing in the grass and sand for "fusees,"—crackers that had failed to explode to the full extent of their powder. They broke them in two and relighted them.
Hal was inexorable; so Charlie cried a little, and then bade her dirty companions a sad farewell.
"Oh!" exclaimed Granny, as they came marching up the path, "what a sight! And your Sunday best dress, Charlie!"