Medfield began her celebration of the Fourth about twenty-four hours ahead of time and gradually worked up to a top-notch of noise, eloquence, and patriotism at approximately one o’clock Tuesday afternoon, at which hour the observances in City Park were at their height. Everyone had turned out, in spite of the almost unbearable heat, and every club or association, from the Grand Army Post to the Medfield Women’s Civic Association, had marched in the procession that, headed by a platoon of police and a very stout Grand Marshal seated precariously on one of Callahan’s livery horses, had, in the words of the next day’s _Morning Chronicle_, “taken just forty-eight minutes to pass a given point.” The _Chronicle_ neglected, however, to mention the fact that the given point to which it referred was the Grand Street crossing where the procession had been held up quite ten minutes by an inconsiderate freight train! Still, it was a fine parade, any way you looked at it. The Fire Department made a glorious showing, the Sons of Veterans marched well in spite of the small boys who got under their feet, the High School Cadets displayed quite a martial appearance, and the various floats, from that of the Women’s Civic Association, which depicted a somewhat wabbly, Grecian-robed America accepting a liberty cap from General Washington, down to the clattering, tinkling wagon hung with tin pans and dippers and plates and dustpans that represented the Medfield Stamping Works, all added to the brilliance of the occasion! You may be certain that neither Wayne nor June missed that parade. On the contrary, they viewed it four separate and distinct times, dodging through side streets as soon as the tail end had passed and reaching a new point of vantage before the head of it appeared. June was frankly disappointed in that the Grand Marshal managed somehow to remain in the saddle until the very end and then left it of his own free will and, it is suspected, very thankfully. June remained hopeful to the last, but was doomed to disappointment. He had a wearied, sleepy appearance today, had June, explained by the fact that he had stayed up all last night with some of his cronies, doing his best to make the occasion memorable in the annals of Medfield, assisting at the lighting and nourishing of the bonfire on Tannery Hill, observing the firing of the cannon in the park at dawn, and finally returning to “Carhurst” at breakfast time with the look of one completely surfeited with pleasure. Wayne had been rather cross at first, but his anger had subsided at sight of June’s left hand. June, it seemed, had lighted a Roman candle and, unwisely obeying the instructions of an acquaintance, had held it by the business end. He hadn’t held it that way long, but long enough to burn the palm of his hand so badly that he had to wear a bandage for nearly a week.