STORY VIII

BUDDY¹'S AND BRIGHTEYES' FOURTH OF JULY

One day, when Buddy and Brighteyes Pigg were playing out in front of their pen, Buddy suddenly exclaimed:

"Why, just think of it! Day after to-morrow is Fourth of July, Brighteyes. Won't we have lots of fun?"

"What will we do?" asked his sister.

"Oh, shoot off firecrackers and torpedoes³, and make lots of noise, and at night we'll send up Roman candles and skyrockets; and oh! it will be better than a circus."

"Oh, you boys!" exclaimed Brighteyes. "You always want to make a racket and have excitement. It's horrid⁴, I think."

"Oh, I s'pose you'll play with your dolls, or something like that," said Buddy, laughing at his sister, who was very serious.

"Yes, that's what I'm going to do," replied Brighteyes. "I'm going to play with Sister Sallie, and Alice and Lulu Wibblewobble, and Jennie Chipmunk⁵, and we're going for a picnic in the woods."

"Look out that a big fox or a bad dog doesn't get you," said Buddy. "Well, I'm going off to find Sammie and Billie and Johnnie and Jimmie and Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow, and Bully⁶ and Bawly Frog, and we'll have a fine time on the Fourth."

"Where are you going to get your firecrackers and things?" asked Brighteyes.

"You'll see," answered Buddy, as he ran off.

Well, Fourth of July came at last, just as it always does, and early in the morning Buddy Pigg awoke.

"Where are you going?" called his papa.

"Out to shoot off some firecrackers," answered Buddy.

"Be careful you don't get burned," cautioned his mother. "Oh dear! I don't like the Fourth of July. If you do get burned. Buddy, run right in and let papa attend to you."

"I can't get burned with the kind of firecrackers and torpedoes I'm going to use," answered the little boy guinea pig, and he laughed as he ran out.

Well, pretty soon, along came all his friends, Billie and Johnnie and Sammie, and all the rest. They were so excited that Bawly, the frog, didn't think to sing a song, or recite any poetry.

"What shall we do first?" asked Buddy.

"Let's play war," suggested Sammie. "We'll divide up into two armies, and have a battle. It will be great!"

So they divided into two sides, and Buddy was the general on one side, and Billie Bushytail on the other. Then the fight began—not real, you understand—but make-believe.

First the loud cannons⁸ shot off; and what do you suppose the cannons were? Why big stones, that the squirrels and rabbits and the other animal boys held and clapped together as loud as anything. You know stones can make a terrible racket when they are hit together real hard. Well, it sounded like regular cannon⁷, and the birds in the wood got awfully⁹ scared.

"Now fire your guns!" cried General Buddy Pigg, and his soldiers took sticks, and snapped them in two pieces and broke them, until they sounded like real guns, or a lot of firecrackers going off.

Oh, it was fine, and the best of it was nobody could get hurt, or burned, either.

"Now shoot them with your torpedoes!" cried General Billie Bushytail, and all at once his side began firing off torpedoes at a great rate; until you would have thought the woods were on fire. And you would never guess what the torpedoes were, so I'll tell you. They were big, rose petals¹⁰, blown up with air until they were like little pink and red balloons, and tied around with a string, just as you tie a paper bag around the neck, after you've blown it up, to burst it, and when those rose-torpedoes were cracked down on a flat stone—my! you should have heard the noise!

Well, lots of them were fired off, and then Buddy Pigg got some empty bags, and his soldiers blew them up, and they cracked 'em down, and they went off "Boom! Boom!" like great, big cannons. They blew dust up in the air, to pretend it was smoke, and there was the most terrible make-believe battle you ever heard of. But nobody was hurt, and they had lots of fun, and the best of it was that neither side won, which made everybody happy.

"Now we'll take a rest," said Buddy Pigg. "I wonder what Brighteyes and the others are doing?"

"Let's go see," proposed Billie Bushytail.

So they all marched off through the woods, just like real soldiers, and pretty soon they came to the place where Brighteyes and Sister Sallie and all the girls were having a picnic.

"You're just in time," called Brighteyes.

"Come and have some lunch, and some lemonade. You must be tired after all that fighting." Now wasn't she kind, even after Buddy had laughed at the idea of a picnic being better than a battle? Well, I just guess! Those soldiers were glad enough to eat the lunch, and drink the lemonade, I can tell you.

So the soldiers and the girls sat there in the woods under the trees and had a fine time—almost as good as at the make-believe battle, I think—and after a while, just as Buddy and his chums were getting ready to go back and shoot some more stick-firecrackers and roseleaf torpedoes, what should happen but that bad fox and that mean, old, yellow, shaggy dog ran right out of the woods.

"Let's eat everything up!" cried the fox, waving his big tail.

"Yes, and then we'll eat the squirrels and rabbits and guinea pigs all up!" cried the dog, gnashing his teeth and blinking his eyes as bold as bold could be.

At first even the soldiers were so frightened that they hardly knew what to do, and they were about to run away, when Buddy called out:

"Come on! Let's get our guns and our cannon and shoot them!"

Then he grabbed up some stick-firecrackers and began to break and snap them, and Sammie shot off some roseleaf torpedoes and Billie and Johnnie clapped stones together, and Jimmie and Bully and Bawly threw dust in the air until it looked like smoke, and there was a terrible racket, until—well, sir, if that dog and that fox weren't so frightened that they ran away and didn't even get so much as a crumb¹¹ of cracker² or a drop of lemonade; and it served them right, I think.

Then how thankful the girls were to the brave soldiers. Oh, everything turned out just right, I'm glad to say. That afternoon Buddy and his chums had more Fourth of July fun, and Brighteyes and her friends played with their dolls.

Then at night Buddy and the boys sent up skyrockets and Roman candles (which were sticks covered with lightning bugs), and prettier ones you never saw. And they even had a lightning-bug pinwheel. Oh, it was the nicest Fourth of July that ever was! I hope you children have as nice a one and that none of you get burned or hurt when you celebrate Independence Day. And, if none of you do, why, in the next story I'll tell you about Buddy Pigg trying to buy a tail for himself, because he didn't have any. That is, I will if the lollypop doesn't fall down stairs and break his stick.