Full of the spirt [Transcriber's note: spirit?] of liberty, your interesting cousin, Randolph, set fire to your Uncle's pocket, and when last seen your Uncle Joe was rushing over hill and dale in the general direction of Hartford, Connecticut, with the firecrackers cheering him on.
[Illustration: With the firecrackers cheering him on.]
Liberty, John, is the only real thing in this world for a nation, but just why the glorious cause of freedom should be slapped in the face with an imitation of the bombardment of Port Arthur is something which I must have misconstrued.
We had a very quiet time here at home on the Fourth, John, with the exception that another interesting cousin of yours, my young namesake, Peter Grant, tied a giant firecracker to the cat's tail, and the cat went to the kitchen to have her explosion.
It took two hours and seven neighbors to get your good old Aunt Maggie out of the refrigerator, which was the place selected for her by the catastrophe.
The stove lost all the supper it contained; little Peter Grant lost two eyebrows and his Buster Brown hair; the cat lost seven of its lives, and the glorious cause of Freedom got a send-off that could be heard nineteen miles.
We all missed you, John, but maybe it is better you were not at home on the Fourth, because the doctor is occupying your room so that he could be near the wounded—otherwise, we are all well.
I think, John, that when Freedom was first invented by George Washington the idea was to make it something quiet and modest which he could keep about the house and which he could look at once in a while without getting nervous prostration.