“But where to go, Doctor? This terrible thing is everywhere more or less.”
“Out of the country. To Europe or Canada, where they don’t pretend to have an Independence Day,” replied the doctor, smiling grimly.
“O Doctor! What cruel mockery is this—this being compelled to go away from our home! It seems such a shame—a positive disgrace!”
“They are not to be weighed in the balance,” said the doctor seriously. “It is a matter of life or death, nerve or no nerve, to your child. If you will begin promptly and continue to take her away every year as long as the present symptoms remain, she may get well in time. Otherwise I will not answer for the result. Another Independence Day as full of racket and accident as the last, would be likely to bring on a mental lapse, for which there would be no hope. The only really safe thing to do is to take a month’s vacation—that is, go out of the country three weeks before Independence Day and stay until two weeks after. That would cover the time which is usually seized upon by the independent and ignorant boys and hoodlums of the community, to put the rest of the people in chains and agony—or exile.”
“O! O! Doctor! Is there no better way? Could we not go among them and talk to them and tell them just how it is with us and ask them to be quiet?”
The doctor shook his head. “I have tried that without effect more than once in the case of very sick patients. It will take years of talk and legislation and education to silence the loud-mouthed monster—and you can’t wait for that.”
“Lord help us to do it then and bring us out of it with health and strength to fight against this terrible evil!” sobbed Mrs. Cornwallis. “O, it seems to me there is no place in this world for the sick, the helpless, and the afraid.”
“Not even in your beautiful new world,” said the doctor. He was a German but he was honest and the reply struck home with double force. She held a long consultation with her husband that evening and they decided to carry out his instructions faithfully. Consequently every year before the Independence Day racket began they sought out a quiet spot on the Canadian border—or rather a place where the American citizen freighted with children and firecrackers was never known to come. It was not always an easy or an agreeable task, to find just such a place; but it had to be found, else the going away would be of no avail.
Ralph was invited to go with them at first and did go as a matter of course, until one fateful year when the parents suddenly awoke to the fact that Ralph was growing a mustache and Ruth was developing into a rather shy but pretty young maiden. The next year they went without him; and the next. Then the unexpected happened. Ruth was disinclined to go, to begin with; but the doctor shook his head and they went. They had been there only a few days, however, when the long avoided American family made a descent on the boarding house.
“Yes, here they are at last,” said Mr. Cornwallis, as soon as he had given them a thorough looking over—“the pestiferous boys, the rackety firecrackers, the indulgent mamma and the blindly patriotic papa, if I mistake not. I fear we shall have to move on.”