“Can’t you tell me of anything you would like better than those evil looking, nasty smelling, dangerous fire crackers and things? Something that you could keep instead of burning up?”
The three older boys maintained a dubious silence while Teddy the youngest cried out: “O mamma! I’d rather have a bugle! A real nice big bugle!”
“He makes me think of little Laurens,” said Ruth turning to Mrs. Bearington with a sob. “He asked mamma ‘why they didn’t have a bugle instead of a cannon on Schwarmer Hill,’ the very morning before he was killed.”
They looked at each other for a moment in sympathetic silence. Then Mrs. Bearington turned quite bravely to the boys.
“See here, boys, mamma is going to ask papa not to buy you any more fireworks. Mamma is going to hunt the city over next year and find you some things that you will like better—bugles! tambourines! trumpets! bicycles!”
CHAPTER VI.
THE FUNNY FOURTH RACKET ON ENGLISH SOIL.
Ruth hoped that her talk, painful though it had been to herself, would have a good influence with the Bearingtons. She would have been quickly undeceived, had she heard a conversation that occurred later on when Mr. Bearington came in from his “smoke walk,” as his wife called it.