CHAPTER XIII
EAGLE PATROL JOINS THE SCOUTS
YOU must not think, when you read this history, that something all the time was happening to us Scouts. I am only telling about what did happen. Pa says that when it comes to starting things we have them all beaten to a frazzle and Ma told us that it would be a mercy if we ever lived to grow up, without losing any of our hands or feet. But we don't think so. Boys have to be doing something all the time, don't they? If they didn't they would get into mischief.
Anyhow, there didn't much of anything happen after Skinny lassoed the bear, for a long time, unless you count the Fourth of July. Nobody can help having the Fourth of July. It's part of the year. It is for our country.
One Fourth of July, long ago, even before Pa was born, they rang old Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, to beat the band, and they fired off guns. 'Cause why? 'Cause there was a paper signed on that day, which said that the United States of America should be free and independent. But England was like old Pharaoh, with the Hebrew children, that the Bible tells about. They didn't want to let us go. I don't blame them much for it, either, but Skinny does.
Anyhow, I guess God must have meant for us to go free, just as He did the Children of Israel because, although England was the greatest Nation in the world and the best one, too, it seems to me, and we were only a few scattering colonies without much money or anything, we came out ahead. That is why Skinny thinks that George Washington could have licked Napoleon Bonaparte with one hand tied behind his back.
So we have the Fourth of July, and we boys ring the church bells at four o'clock in the morning, when they don't catch us at it, just like old Liberty Bell was rung so many years ago.
One of Skinny's ancestors was killed in the battle of Bunker Hill. That is what makes him so fierce against the Britishers. Every Fourth of July he has us go up on Bob's Hill or somewhere and fight the battle all over again.
The time I am telling about we built a fire on the hill and rang the church bells and fired off firecrackers until we were tired and half starved; then went home to breakfast. Everybody promised to meet again at my house about nine o'clock.