I would fire off crackers all day like an elf,
The Giant Torpedoes would fall to the ground,
And all would come down with a terrible sound.
“What good are little paper caps?
I would not give two ginger snaps,
They do not make a noise worth hearing,
But fire-crackers, the ladies are fearing.”
If Charlie should write this again, he would change the above, but it is too late to alter now, and we give it as preserved in our note-book. Furious applause followed this ebullition of poetic genius.
The collation was followed by the raft-race. The ditch that ran beside the railroad embankment widened in one place to forty feet. Half a dozen logs were here floating. The keeper of the great seal had brought with him a hammer and a handful of nails, and seeing on his way several strips of board, he had picked them up and now nailed the six logs together in pairs, making three rafts.
“There will now be a race between our first treasurer, our sentinel, and the keeper of the great seal,” pompously announced Sid. “This will be the first race. I expected Tony and the governor would compete, but they have gone home. The Fourth was too much for them.”