“That’s little Laurens Cornwallis—the handsomest boy in Killsbury or the world, they say. You’ve heard me speak of the Cornwallis’s, most assuredly you have. They are not eminently patriotic, I suspect, though they display the colors. We’ll see how the eaglet stands affected toward his country this morning.”
Schwarmer went to the fence and beckoned the boy to come to him.
Laurens came on a little distance but stopped when he recognized Schwarmer.
“Come on, my pretty” said Schwarmer, “I will give you a nice new box of powdered crackers to help you celebrate. You can make them go off without the aid of the fickle wind.”
Laurens shook his curly head vigorously. “I don’t want any. I told mamma I would not touch Mr. Schwarmer’s fire-things.” Then he turned and ran away from them as fast as his little legs could carry him.
“How’s that for frankness?” sneered Fons as they moved on. “It beats you who are a professional, ‘all the way to Buzzard’s Bay,’ as the boys say.”
“Yes, and it looks rather dull for your trade, Fons,” laughed Schwarmer rather derisively. “Perhaps you had better put your inventive genius into some other business. It’s pretty poor encouragement when you can’t even give away your productions. Most assuredly it is.”
“It’s doubtful policy to begin at the church door,” said Fons. “More stars and stripes and fewer fireworks is the church idea. I never see such a boy as that—with a regular Sunday School look and eyes rolled up—without wanting to call him down. The most beautiful Laurens needs a giant firecracker and a dynamite cap and cane to bring him down to the proper altitude. They don’t teach fire and brimstone in the churches now, so it’s necessary for the youngsters to get a smell of it from the outside.”
“Military slang aside, Fons. His mother is cosseting him and making a sort of an inspired idiot of him, most assuredly she is. He is a beauty—too much of a beauty for a boy; but he will never be fit for business. But mothers never think of things in a business way and Mrs. Cornwallis is the main spoke in Cornwallis’ wheel, most assuredly she is.”
“A wheel of domesticity all around I should judge,” laughed Fons. “Cornwallis is no business man.”