The Independence Day Horror at Killsbury
CHAPTER I.
THE CORNWALLIS COTTAGE.
It was Independence Day. The sun rose gorgeously. The air was electric and inspiring. Blossoming plants were exhaling rare fragrance. The forests and rivers were palpitating with glad, soft sounds and gentle fervor. The birds were singing jubilantly, and various forms of living things were alert and antic. Yes, it was “Independence Day in the morning” as the Killsbury boys called it. It was full of glorious promise—the list of the dead and wounded had not as yet come in!
Apparently there were not half a dozen people in the town who would have admitted that there would be any casualties on the day that had dawned so beautifully; although there had been an increasing number of them every year since Millionaire Schwarmer had come and built his mansion on “The Hill” and decorated its brow with a big-mouthed cannon.
The cannon began to boom as soon as the sun appeared above the horizon. It continued to boom industriously as though it were determined to wake up every citizen in Killsbury and the surrounding country to the important fact that “Independence Day had really and truly and unmistakably dawned,” as Captain Dan Solomon facetiously remarked. It was a fact that would have been well known and appreciated, at least by every inmate of the Cornwallis Cottage, even though there had been no cannon on Schwarmer Hill to vomit it forth; for the reason that the sole son of the house, Laurens Angelo Cornwallis, had been born on that day.
Little Laurens Angelo Cornwallis was the most beautiful boy in Killsbury, “or the whole world,” averred the Reverend Dr. Normander, who had baptised him and had traveled the world nearly enough over to make a correct estimate with regard to the part that remained. Yes, and he was as good and bright as he was beautiful—the joy of his mother, the pride of his father and to his sister Ruth the “dear angel,” as she called him, so it goes without saying that his birthday would have been celebrated with due love and honor even if he had not been born on Independence Day; although there might not have been such a showing of red, white and blue—probably no more than one American flag, with an English and French flag lovingly intertwined (for Mr. Cornwallis was of English descent and his wife of French descent) whereas now there were flags on the four corners of the cottage, and over all the doors and windows both inside and outside and a generous display of bunting everywhere.
“A double quantity” as Mr. Cornwallis was wont to ask for when he bought a new supply of colors.
“One half to celebrate our boy’s birthday and the other half to celebrate our Nation’s birthday. You see we don’t intend to be partial.”
And when the shopman, who inclined to think that love of one’s own country meant hate of all other countries, remarked “there are some who say that we should love our country more than our wives and children,” Mr. Cornwallis replied: