"I thought that was what parents were for--to guard their own children, Dr. Normander. If I should attempt to guard other people's children I should expect to be told that my services were not wanted, most assuredly I should; and if I give a boy a box of firecrackers to honor his country with, I consider it's his parents' business to see that he makes the right use of it, just as it would be their business to see that he made the right use of a Sunday School book that you might give him to honor his God with! No knowing but he would take a notion to set a match to the one thing or the other, or the whole thing, if left to himself long enough--in which case he would be apt to burn his fingers and perhaps burn himself up and the whole house too; but neither you nor I would be to blame, I take it," laughed Schwarmer. Dr. Normander was amazed at such levity and reasoning or lack of reason; but he replied with becoming patience: "Not for what we could not foresee or avoid, Mr. Schwarmer. Every mature individual knows that all kinds of explosives are more or less dangerous. There is a lurking devil in them that it will not do to play with. They should not be used unless it is absolutely necessary and then only by experienced hands. Surely, it would be very easy for you to withhold your gifts to the boys, or make them of a non-explosive character. You might try it next year and note the results in the death and accident list. I think it would not only be right for you to do so, but the part of wisdom, as quite a number, especially those mothers who have had their boys seriously hurt by the explosives which you have given them, are being very much exercised about the matter." "Bless their hearts!" exclaimed Schwarmer reddening perceptibly, "I suppose they think I own the Fourth of July and must run it and be responsible for everything that goes amiss. Now I suppose they'll try to blame me for old Dan's death. You know old Captain Dan Solomon--the expressman. He came up here yesterday and insisted on letting off the cannon. I couldn't refuse him. It was Liberty day, you know. The day didn't belong to _me_ any more than it did to anybody else, nor the cannon either. I dedicated it to the town to begin with, so old Dan did as he chose. He was careless with it at the sundown charge and it burst and killed him. Come and see him. They have him all nicely laid out in the coachman's apartment."