She whispered loud enough to be heard across the room and Schwarmer may or may not have heard her. He continued: "Don't be alarmed, my dear ladies. I wouldn't have the heart to hurt a hair of your heads, nor a hair that belonged to your children. Be assured I shall lay up nothing against you, and I'm not going to be hard with your husbands and lovers either, rest assured I am not. Go in peace." He waved his hand as though waving them out; but they did not "follow the wave." Mrs. Normander came to the front and gave the list of accidents as Ralph had done at the mass meeting. She also repeated the statement that the list was out of all proportion to that of other towns throughout the state. Then she turned upon him squarely. This being the case the question was, why it was so? "You know how that question was settled at the meeting, Mr. Schwarmer, and the result." "Yes, I know," said Schwarmer, "that my property was meddled with and I know that accidents occur or are liable to occur all over the country on the Fourth, and we don't know where they will occur, nor how many will occur at a given point, most assuredly we don't, and we don't know just how many occur in our own town. They are not always reported, or made much of. There will be accidents on that day as a matter of course, truly there always have been and must be--it's an accidental world--full of accident policies--eh, ladies? The Fourth of July wouldn't be the Fourth without accidents, surely it wouldn't, would it ladies?" "Yes it would," said Mrs. Normander. "We have had one this year--a lovely Fourth. We all enjoyed it--especially the children. They said they had never had such a splendid Independence Day. They had no fireworks and not a single one was hurt. We heard there was quite a serious accident at your place where you had an elaborate pyrotechnic display." "O! a small one, ladies, a very small one--truly very small--not worth mentioning, ladies." "Not for you," cried out a voice angrily; "but for the poor mother who lost her child!" She broke off sobbing. She was the widow whose little boy had died of _tetanus_ a few years before. The ladies all knew it and were visibly affected.