said, so that youth of three summers was wandering around in his
night-gown, and had taken so active an interest in the proceedings that
Mrs. Dodson had several times sent him to his father, complaining, "I
never did see him so upstroferlous before."

Sneeze--so called because he was named for his father, and it was
necessary to distinguish them--was hurried in from the barn; his ears
were boxed for "not bein' 'round to take care of Bubby," and then he was
sent with him to the barn.

Deacon had been duly badgered and pestered about household troubles. He
had helped to put on Bubby's shoes--now far too small--and tried to hook
Mrs. Dodson's dress--similarly outgrown. But he was at length
exasperated into saying:

"By George! I can't think of a word of my speech, you bother me so!"

"You fairly make my blood run cold to be sayin' sech words as that on
this Fourth o' July mornin', which you always said was nex' door to
swearin'!" replied his wife; but her stream of talk was frozen up for
the time, and they were at length dressed, packed, and rattling over the
stony hills in a lumber-wagon.

"Wal, this seems quite like Independence Day," she said musingly. "I
remember once goin' to a reg'lar picnic when I was about the bigness of
Sneeze there, an' we had an awful good time. Mother'd plegged herself to
git up somethin' that nobody else'd have, an' finally she made a lot o'
figger four doughnuts to stand for Fourth o' July, you know, an' Aunt
Jane, she that was a Green, Uncle Josiah's first wife, was kind o'
jealous 'cause people noticed them more'n her cookin', an' she said they
was shortened with toughening till nobody couldn't eat 'em. It come
right straight back to mother, an' they never spoke for better'n a
year--no, 'twas just a year, come to think, for mother took sick in bed
very nex' Fourth, an' then Aunt Jane confessed humble enough, and they
made up."

Sneeze had been listening, and while his mother paused for breath, he
asked, "What do we keep Fourth of July for, an' what makes 'em call it
Independence Day? I heard Reub Blake say that was the true name of it."

"Why, Sneeze, I'm 'shamed of you that you don't know that much. It is
because George Washington was born on that day, or died; which was it,
father? An' he fought for our independence. Besides, he never told a
lie, as it tells about in the spellin'-book."

"Yes, it was something of that natur'," said the Deacon; "you'll know
all about it to-day whe