ne. His gang of Jacksonville heroes will probably get pensions when
they are old enough. Bring that bugler in here some day, and don't
let him know what he is going to run up against, and I will give you a
dollar, and I will let you see me dust the carpet with him," and the old
man sat down and fanned himself, while the boy looked scared for fear
Uncle Ike was going to have a fit. "Why, at the battle of Pea Ridge,
when a minie ball struck me, when I was on the firing line----"

"Keno," said the red-headed boy, as he went through the window head
first, and over the picket fence on his stomach, and disappeared down
the street.

CHAPTER VIII.

"Say, Uncle Ike, don't you think the Fourth of July is sort of played
out?" asked the red-headed boy, as he came to Uncle Ike's room on the
morning of the 5th, by appointment, to demonstrate to the old man that
he had not been quite killed by the celebration of the great day. "It
seems to me we don't have half as many accidents and fires as we used
to," and the boy counted off to the uncle the dozen injuries he had
received by burns, and dug into his eye with a soiled handkerchief in
search of some gravel from a torpedo.

"Oh, I don't know," said Uncle Ike, as he lighted the old pipe and began
to look over the boy's injuries. "The Fourth is carrying on business at
the old stand, apparently. Your injuries are in the right places, on
the left hand, principally, and the gravel is in the left eye. That is
right. Always keep the right hand and the right eye in good shape, so
you can sight a gun and pull a trigger, either in shooting ducks or
Filipinos. You see, our country is growing, and we are celebrating the
Fourth from Alaska to Porto Rico, and from London to Luzon, so we can't
celebrate so very much in any one place. I expect by another Fourth
Queen Victoria will be yelling for the glorious Fourth, Emperor William
will be touching off dynamite firecrackers, Russia will be eating Roman
candies, and Aguinaldo will be touching off nigger-chasers and drinking
red lemonade. This is a great country, boy, and don't you forget it."

"Well, you may be right," said the boy, as he poured some witch-hazel on
a rag around his thumb, "but it looks to me as though the troops in the
Philippines will be climbing aboard transports protected by the fleet,
with Aguinaldo slaughtering the boys in the hospitals and looting
Manila, if the President does not get a move onto himself and send
anoth