I pondered this, for most of the folk in the little town did neither of these things.
“Why don’t they have another Fourth of July for the rest, then,” I suggested, “and leave them settle on their own celebration?”
Margaret Amelia looked shocked.
“I guess you don’t know much about the Decoration of Independence,” said she.
The Decoration of Independence—we all called it this—was, then, to go by without attention because the Town said so.
“The Town,” said Mary Elizabeth, dreamily, “the Town. It sounds like somebody tall, very high, and pointed at the top, with the rest of her dark and long and flowy—don’t it?”
“City,” she and I were agreed, sounded like somebody light and sitting down with her skirts spread out.
“Village” sounded like a little soft hollow, not much of any colour, with a steeple to it.
“I like ‘Town’ best,” Mary Elizabeth said. “It sounds more like a mother-woman. ‘City’ sounds like a lady-woman. And ‘Village’ sounds like a grandma-woman. I like ‘Town’ best.”
“What I want to do,” Margaret Amelia said restlessly, “is to spend my Fourth of July dollar. I had a Fourth of July dollar ever since Christmas. It’s no fun spending it with no folks and bands and wagons.”