mer.

CHAPTER X

SAMMY'S FOURTH OF JULY

The next day Sammy sat on a bench on the cottage stoop, apparently very
intent on a perusal of the Farmer's Almanac, but it was evident his
thoughts were somewhere else.

"What in nater is the boy a-doin'?" asked his mother, looking up from a
pile of stockings she was mending. "If he ain't twisting up thet
Almanac as if 'twasn't any more than a piece of brown paper. What are
you thinking about, Sammy?"

"Thursday is Fourth o' July," answered her son.

"Well, what if it is? I'm sure I'm willing."

"They are going to have great doings down to Springfield," added Sammy.

"Is that so? I hope they enjoy themselves. But it ain't anything to me
as I know on."

"I want to go down an' see the celebration," said Sammy, mustering up
his courage to give utterance to so daring a proposition.

"Want to see the Fourth o' July in Springfield?" ejaculated his mother.
"Is the boy crazy? Ain't it the Fourth o' July here as well as there,
I'd like to know?"

"Well, I suppose it is, but I never was in Springfield, an' I want to
go. They've got a lot o' shows there, an' I'm bound to see some of
'em."

"Sammy," said his mother, solemnly, "it would be the ruination of you;
you'd git shot, or something wuss. You ain't nuthin' but a boy, an'
couldn't be trusted nohow."

"Ain't I fourteen, an' ain't I 'most six feet high?" answered back
Sammy, defiantly. "An' didn't Dick Slade, who is only thirteen, go down
last Fourth an' have a smashin' good time an' not git hurt?"

"But you ain't got no experience, Sammy."

"I've got enough to go to Springfield."

"No, you had better give up the notion."

"Now, mother, don't say that!" pleaded the son.

"But I do say it."

"Well, then I'm going to--to run away! I'll go to sea an' be a sailor,
or sumthin'!" burst out Sammy, recklessly. "I'm sick o' workin' every
single day!"

"Stop talking in that dreadful way, Sammy!" said Mrs. Borden,
anxiously.

"Then you ask paw to let me go."

"'Twon't do no good."

"Yes, it will. You ask him, won't you?" pleaded the son.

At last Mrs. Borden consented and spoke to her husband about it during
the dinner hour. Jerry Borden shook his head.

"He can't go--it's sheer foolishness," he said.

"If you don't let him go I'm afraid he will run away," said the wife.
"He has his heart set on going." Sammy was out of the room at the time,
so he could not hear the talk.

At first Mr. Borden would not