Of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration not all affixed their names to the document on that notable second of August. Absentees and new-comers added their names as they joined the Congress, and not until the fourth day of November, 1776, was the last signature affixed.
Names and dates go for but little when a great deed is done. The deed itself is of more importance than either names or dates. But to us of this second century of the Republic there is both interest and pleasure in re-telling the story of liberty and following out by dates, altogether new to most of us, the real progress of the historic document that made us a nation.
Instead of one “Fourth of July,� you see, we have really four—The Second of July, upon which Mr. Lee’s Resolution of Independence was passed by the Congress; the Third of July, upon which the Declaration itself was passed; the Fourth of July which witnessed the order for its proclamation, and the Second of August upon which it was actually signed by the members of the Congress.
The original document to which these names were signed still exists, grown worn and yellow with age; the Liberty Bell that rang out the joyous news of freedom on the sunny noon and the starlit night of the eventful eighth of July is now cracked and voiceless; the signers themselves are now only names and memories; but their work lives in the power and glory of the great nation which they founded, and every true American girl and boy honors the memory and applauds the courage of those devoted men. And upon each recurring Fourth of July every girl and boy in the land is as joyous and jubilant a young patriot as was even young Joe Nixon when, with bonfire and rude, old-time fireworks, with hurrah and shout and song he celebrated, in the days when George the Third was king, the first Fourth of July on the Eighth.
THEIR FLAG DAY[U]
By Herbert O. McCrillis
A grandfather tells a group of patriotic little Americans how his grandfather was a redcoat at Lexington.
TOOT! Toot! Rub-a-dub-dub! came from down the street, and it made Grandpa Sturdy, who sat dozing in the sun, start up suddenly and look to see what gallant soldiers were coming.
First came Captain Tommy Rankin, acting as drum-major, with his sister’s muff worn for a fur hat, and an umbrella for a baton. Behind him came a troop of children wearing all sorts of military decorations—helmets, epaulets, and paper caps. One boy carried a large flag, and one of the girls was singing through a comb.
Grandpa rose and went out to the gate as they came near. Then, just as they came close, he took off his hat and gave them a military salute—for grandpa was a soldier once—and held up his hand for them to stop just a moment.