"Oh, Charlie! Why did you do it? On my birthday too! I am so sorry, for now you will miss all the fun of the Fourth." And as she spoke, Mary sat down, dangling her broad hat by one string, and looked disconsolately at her brother, who had been sent to bed as a punishment.
"How was I to know that just a little bunch of fire-crackers like that was going to smash the goblet? I did not think it would do anything but just lift it up some."
"Who told you to do such a thing, Charlie?"
"Nobody; I thought of it myself. Oh dear! I wish I had a grandma, or an aunt, or somebody like that!"
"What for, Charlie? I am sure nobody could be half so good as mamma."
"I like grandmas and aunts. Eddie Bates has a grandmamma, and she always gets him out of scrapes; and Tom Taylor has an aunt that does lots of things for him. People ought not to get married if they don't have mothers and sisters to make grandmas and aunts for fellows who are always getting blamed for nothing at all."
"But, Charlie, you did break the glass."
"No, I didn't either; the fire-crackers broke it. Oh, dear! dear! I wish there wasn't any Fourth of July, nor fire-crackers, nor nothing! What's the use of fire-crackers, if a fellow can't fire them off? It was real mean to let me spend all my money on fire-crackers, and then not let me have any fun with them. There's my pin-wheel too. I promised Bates to fasten it to the top of the highest clothes-pole in his back yard to-night."
"I am so sorry, Charlie dear!"