Pollio was soon relieved, but his little sister would give him no more plums.
“Mamma, won’t you please stop making plum-preserves?” said she anxiously. “It keeps me praying all the time.”
Pollio thought he should be very wretched if he could not see the fireworks; but, when Posy declared she would not go without him, he was consoled. And indeed, before it was time for the rockets to go up, both the children were fast asleep, their heads on the same pillow, and their arms around each other’s necks.
Thus ended Pollio’s Fourth of July; but I am sorry to say it was not the end of his illness.
Here is a rhyme that Nunky chanted over to him just for fun:—
“Saddled and bridled and booted rode he,
Wolf’s head on his shoulders, tin pan on his knee:
Home came the saddle, and home came the pan;
But where is the wolf that rode like a man?”