Mr. Schwarmer laughed. “Well that’s no fault of mine, Dr. Normander. Any sensible man knows that there isn’t enough powder in one of my little packages to hurt any child. He couldn’t more than scorch his fingers were he to let them all off at once—rest assured he couldn’t. He couldn’t more than learn ‘The burnt child dreads the fire’ adage, which every child has got to learn sooner or later.”
“But if a large number of boys should club together and every one had a box, Mr. Schwarmer? What then?”
“O that would be another affair, Dr. Normander. The parents and the police should regulate a thing of that kind—most assuredly they should—the parents primarily.”
“But parents can’t always stand on guard, Mr. Schwarmer.”
“I thought that was what parents were for—to guard their own children, Dr. Normander. If I should attempt to guard other people’s children I should expect to be told that my services were not wanted, most assuredly I should; and if I give a boy a box of firecrackers to honor his country with, I consider it’s his parents’ business to see that he makes the right use of it, just as it would be their business to see that he made the right use of a Sunday School book that you might give him to honor his God with! No knowing but he would take a notion to set a match to the one thing or the other, or the whole thing, if left to himself long enough—in which case he would be apt to burn his fingers and perhaps burn himself up and the whole house too; but neither you nor I would be to blame, I take it,” laughed Schwarmer.
Dr. Normander was amazed at such levity and reasoning or lack of reason; but he replied with becoming patience: “Not for what we could not foresee or avoid, Mr. Schwarmer. Every mature individual knows that all kinds of explosives are more or less dangerous. There is a lurking devil in them that it will not do to play with. They should not be used unless it is absolutely necessary and then only by experienced hands. Surely, it would be very easy for you to withhold your gifts to the boys, or make them of a non-explosive character. You might try it next year and note the results in the death and accident list. I think it would not only be right for you to do so, but the part of wisdom, as quite a number, especially those mothers who have had their boys seriously hurt by the explosives which you have given them, are being very much exercised about the matter.”
“Bless their hearts!” exclaimed Schwarmer reddening perceptibly, “I suppose they think I own the Fourth of July and must run it and be responsible for everything that goes amiss. Now I suppose they’ll try to blame me for old Dan’s death. You know old Captain Dan Solomon—the expressman. He came up here yesterday and insisted on letting off the cannon. I couldn’t refuse him. It was Liberty day, you know. The day didn’t belong to me any more than it did to anybody else, nor the cannon either. I dedicated it to the town to begin with, so old Dan did as he chose. He was careless with it at the sundown charge and it burst and killed him. Come and see him. They have him all nicely laid out in the coachman’s apartment.”
“Indeed! I had not heard of this,” said Doctor Normander. He arose in astonishment and followed Mr. Schwarmer to the stable. One look was as much as he could endure. He turned away in silence and went wearily down the hill. He was convinced that Schwarmer did not give little Laurens Cornwallis the explosives that caused his death; but he was still more thoroughly convinced that he was responsible through his influence and example for the alarming increase of accidents in the town; but beyond all lay the dread conviction that the evil was coexistent with our body politic and that the parents and people in general had become so inured to it—so dead to its enormity that it would be well nigh impossible to bring about any essential reform.
The Saturday after the burial of Laurens Cornwallis, Dr. Normander rose feeling quite ill, but he would not give up. He seized his hat and went out to walk.
When he reached the first avenue he looked up and saw Father Ferrill crossing the street at a rapid pace.