"I suppose you will be glad to crack walnuts and shell them for cake, eh?" teased Mrs. Parke, who knew of her children's failing in that line of work.
"Try me!" laughed Jack.
So it was hastily decided to celebrate Jack's birthday with a sort of Hallowe'en party, although it was only the middle of October. And every one went to work on the plan for the celebration.
About a dozen invitations were sent out, which, with the four cousins, would make sixteen guests for the party; this was said to be quite enough for a jolly time. Then cakes, prizes and other things had to be prepared, and in the midst of the pleasant excitement the two fathers arrived.
"Seen all of Philadelphia, I suppose," said Mr. Parke later in the evening.
"Nothing but the battle-field between the Hessians and Washingtons," said George.
"Now, what does that mean?" asked Mr. Davis.
So the boys told about the fight, in terms to suit their patriotic sense of the affair, so that it did not appear to the men as having been just an ordinary brawl between two hostile factions, but that is what both the ladies persisted in calling it.
The next day the two men escorted the four children as promised, Mr. Davis using the automobile for the trip. They visited the old state house, Girard College, the Custom House and Subtreasury, and the new city hall, which had cost more than $20,000,000, and is one of the finest and largest of municipal buildings in the United States. The statue of William Penn crowns the top of its dome. Then, too, they saw the post office, built of granite, which, they were told, has no superior in postal buildings in the country.
In the state house the four little patriots saw a large apartment on the first floor which the men said was Independence Hall. It was decorated with quaint carvings, and pictures of famous Americans adorned its walls. Many of the chairs used by the members of Congress in 1776 still stood here to remind the children of that great event—the reading and signing of the Declaration of Independence, executed in this city.