“Yes. There is one thing more. Promise not to have the cannon let off. Ruth doesn’t like to hear it and it makes her mother cry, because little Laurens shivered when he heard it the morning before he was killed, and asked her why you didn’t have a bugle?”
Schwarmer turned quickly to the ’phone and called up a music-dealer: “Please send me at once the best bugle and bugler that there is in the market.”
“That’s all, dear blessed father. I’m so happy! What a truly glorious time we are going to have,” cried Adelaide, as she danced out of the office and hastened away to the Library to tell Ruth the good news. She did not tell her about the bugle; but it came in time to speak for itself.
It’s sweet notes penetrated the Cornwallis cottage as the Fourth of July dawned. Mr. and Mrs. Cornwallis were asleep when the first note came. When the second note came Mrs. Cornwallis awoke and wondered if she were still on earth. She had dreamed of being in Heaven with Laurens and listening to a bugle call. It seemed so real to her that she shook her husband’s arm.
“The bugle! The bugle! Did you hear it? Are we in Heaven?”
“Not quite, Angeline, but I think we are happier than we have been in years and I do hear a bugle. It’s time for the cannon. Do you suppose anybody could have put it into Schwarmer’s head to have a bugle instead of a cannon?”
Ruth and Ralph were awake when the first note sounded. She was gathering up her nerves for the booming of the cannon and Ralph was saying: “I believe Miss Schwarmer would influence her father to do away with that monster if she knew how it hurt you and especially your mother.”
“She does know it, Ralph, and I believe she has done it,” exclaimed Ruth, springing up and listening intently. “Yes, Ralph, don’t you hear it? It’s a bugle! Really a bugle!”
Another note sweeter and louder greeted them.
“Yes, it is a bugle and a very fine one. What a blessed creature Adelaide Schwarmer is!” said Ralph.