Small boys were firing off lock-jaw pistols and smaller boys were exploding firecrackers and already that morning there had been a delightful fire in a fireworks store. Thanks to the visiting firemen it had been put out before the store was entirely consumed. Every one had been intensely gratified at the excitement excepting the owner who had reckoned on having his fireworks set off in other places than his own store. There was no chance for his rockets to show to advantage. However, he was fully insured and he showed his American spirit by hiring an empty store and doing a good business for the rest of the day in selling wet fireworks at a discount. Small boys found that fifty per cent of the crackers in a package would go off in spite of their exposure to water and as two cents a package was his prevailing price they were willing to buy to the extent of their Fourth-of-July fortunes. To our city eyes the parade was not very imposing but then again viewed as a spectacle of American manhood it was not without its interest and the company of smoothshaven, tanned cheeked veterans of the Philippine War marching sturdily along provoked tremendous cheers from many who in the nature of things must have been “antis.” All men are or ought to be expansionists on the Fourth-of-July. It is a day for fine feeling and for feeling fine. Ethel responded to its spirit nobly and she had not looked so well in years. Once we heard loud laughter from the crowd and I instinctively said “Minerva,” and sure enough they were laughing at our maid. She or James had bought an American flag and she had wrapped it around her shoulders and was rising and falling on the balls of her feet in response to some internal rhythm. All at once she broke out into the singing of Dixie in which she was joined first by James and then by the entire crowd. Those who could not sing cheered and if there were any Southerners present it must have warmed the cockles of their hearts. There is no doubt that the most popular song in the United States to-day (outside of “America” which is popular by tradition) is Dixie which was composed and written by a Northerner, fused into life by Southerners and now serves to show that we are Americans all. After the parade those of us who could made our way to the Town Hall where the Declaration of Independence was to be read and where speeches were to be made quite in the old fashioned way. Ethel had never heard the Declaration of Independence read. Fancy! Neither had I.