“Well, I reckon you’re right, Henry,” Mrs. Baker assented.
They did not talk gayly any more; when the last rocket had climbed the sky, Jake Milrace rose and said in a whisper he must be going.
After he was gone, Frank told, as if he had just thought of it, about the boy that had fooled them so, at Pawpaw Bottom; and he was surprised at the way his mother and his Uncle Henry questioned him up about it.
“Well, now,” she said, “I’m glad poor Mrs. Fogle wasn’t here, or—” She stopped, and her brother-in-law rose, with the hand of his sleepy little son in his own.
“I think Pony had better say good-night now, while he can. Frank, you’ve had a remarkable Fourth. Good-night, all. I wish I had spent the day at Pawpaw Bottom myself.”
Before they slept that night, Pony’s mother said: “Well, I’d just as soon you’d kept that story to yourself till morning, Henry. I shall keep thinking about it, and not sleep a wink. How in the world do you account for it?”
“I don’t account for it,” said Pony’s father.
“Now, that won’t do! What do you think?”
“Well, if it was one boy that saw the fourth boy it might be a simple case of lying.”
“Frank Baker never told a lie in his life. He couldn’t.”