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Laura was jerked out of sleep. The bedroom was dark. Carrie asked in a thin, scared whisper, “What was that?”
“Don’t be scared,” Laura answered. They listened. The window was hardly gray in the dark, but Laura could feel that the middle of the night was past.
BOOM! The air seemed to shake.
“Great guns!” Pa exclaimed sleepily.
“Why? Why?” Grace demanded. “Pa, Ma, why?”
Carrie asked, “Who is it? What are they shooting?” “What time is it?” Ma wanted to know.
Through the partition Pa answered, “It’s Fourth of July, Carrie.” The air shook again. BOOM!
It was not great guns. It was gunpowder exploded under the blacksmith’s anvil, in town. The noise was like the noise of battles that Americans fought for independence. Fourth of July was the day when the first Americans declared that all men are born free and equal. BOOM!
“Come, girls, we might as well get up,” Ma called.
Pa sang, “‘Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light?’”
“Charles!” Ma protested, but she was laughing, because it really was too dark to see.
“It’s nothing to be solemn about!” Pa jumped out of bed. “Hurray! We’re Americans!” He sang:
“Hurray! Hurray! We’ll sing t
he jubilee! Hurray!
Hurray! The flag that sets men free!”
Even the sun, as it rose shining into the clearest of skies, seemed to know this day was the glorious Fourth. At breakfast Ma said, “This would be a perfect day for a Fourth of July picnic.”
“Maybe the town’ll be far enough along to have one, come next July,” said Pa.
“We couldn’t hardly have a picnic this year, anyway,” Ma admitted. “It wouldn’t seem like a picnic, without fried chicken.”
After such a rousing beginning, the day did seem empty. Such a special day seemed to expect some special happening, but nothing special could happen.
“I feel like dressing up,” Carrie said while they did the dishes.
“So do I, but there’s nothing to dress up for,” Laura replied.
When she carried out the dishwater to throw it far from the house, she saw Pa looking at the oats. They were growing thick and tall, gray-green and smoothly rippling in the wind. The corn was growing lustily, too. Its long, yellow-green, fluttering leaves almost hid the broken sod. In the garden the cucumber vines were reaching out, their crawling tips uncurling beyond patches of spreading big leaves. The rows of peas and beans were rounding up, the carrot rows were feathery green and the beets were thrusting up long, dark leaves on red stems. The ground-cherries were already small bushes. Through the wild grasses the chickens were scattered, chasing insects to eat.
All this was satisfaction enough for an ordinary day, but for Fourth of July there should be something more.
Pa felt the same way. He had nothing to do, for on Fourth of July no work could be done except the chores and housework. In a little while he came into the house and said to Ma, “There’s a kind of celebration in town today, would you like to go?”
“What kind of celebration?” Ma asked.
“Well, mostly horse racing, but they took up a collection for lemonade,” Pa replied.
“Women are not likely to be at a horse race,” Ma said. “And I couldn’t go calling, uninvited, on Fourth of July.”
Laura and Carrie stood almost bursting with eagerness while Ma considered, and shook her head. “You go along, Charles. It would be too much for Grace, anyway.”
“It is much nicer at home,” said Mary.
Then Laura spoke. “Oh Pa, if you go, can’t Carrie and I?”
