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Show While the Fourth of July Is looked forwnrd fo with positive terror by tho mothers of xmull boys and venturesome venture-some girls, not one woman out of a hundred has the heart to forbid the observance of the dny by the popularly popu-larly approved method of noise nnd the necessary combination of gunpowder gun-powder and lire. Truly no Spartan mother was moro heroic In sending her sons to the (mining kcIiuuI and battle than the plucky little American mother of a pack of patriotic young people, It Ih to be I eared that the fundamental spirit of Independence which made the day worthy of remembrance re-membrance Is very often forgotten, or at least lost sight of, In the awful delight de-light surrounding a puck of lire-crackers. lire-crackers. But how Is It that on this day ot nys mother Ignores or keeps silent about her headache; patcrfnmlllns rises with tho lark, ostensibly to pro-vent pro-vent his offspring rfom setting flro to tho premises If not to themselves, nnd grandfather contributes to tho Joy-ousncss Joy-ousncss of the occasion by generous donations of cash, nnd oven tho grown-up sons and daughters ot tho household aro willing to set off some of tho lnrger pieces In the pyrotechnic pyrotech-nic layout? Is nil thU unselfish bo-havlor bo-havlor entirely for tho sake of amus ing the chlldt en; of lettlr.v them havo one dny of absolute freedom; of assisting as-sisting them In firing off the said dangerous toys In order to provent' tho little people from getting hurt? Sumo people have a sneaking notion that the proper observance of the day Is not entirely for the pleasure of the young people, and that paterfamilias secretly enjoys rousing the neighborhood neighbor-hood with n blast of patriotism, and that grandpa has been hoarding up hln spare pennies for weeks past and would have been much chagrined It his young grandson bad not generously generous-ly Invited him to "set off" a few of the crackers hlmselfl ; As for the mother of the family, would sho upon any other occasion put up with the din nnd the dirt and the burns and ruined clothes If sho had not some sympathy for the offenders hidden away In her Inner heart? She may laugh at her husband's efforts ef-forts to becomo a boy again, but she Is us delighted as the children themselves them-selves when snld husband persuades her to try firing off the pistol, and sho recalls to mind that It was not so very long ago when she was nblo to hit the bull's-eye nt quite a long range. "I was Just your ago then, daughter," and sho smiles quietly to herself at some hnlf-forgotton episode. |