University of Virginia Library

THE FIRECRACKER BOY.

Upon Thomas Jefferson's venerable head are heaped the praise and the blame of our Fourth-of-July tumult and racket. He it was who first suggested that firecrackers should be burned, cannon fired, and pyrotechnics let loose on the anniversary of our nation's birth. Perhaps he regretted it, when he grew old and infirm.

The recent reforms in that respect are no doubt best for the public good: the “Safe and Sane Fourth” is spreading—to the nation's benefit and the surgeon's loss.

But no one can help sympathizing with the poor urchin, one of whose most delicious luxuries of life is, to make a noise.

On the steps of a house, still and sad as a mouse
With no goods to destroy,
Unreservedly pained at the stillness that reigned,
Sat the firecracker boy.
“There is nothin' to do, all this Fourth o'J'ly through,”
He said, glancing around:
“There is no proper way for to work or to play,
If you can't make no sound!
You can set in deep thought how George Wash'ton once fought,
An' didn't never tell lies;
An' how he—an' some more—waded knee-deep in gore,
Almost up to their eyes;
You can say ‘No one swipes any sparklers or stripes
From the banner 't means Us,
Or to give it display in no improper way,
If they don't want a fuss;’
We can tell how our gran'thers fit worse than wild panthers,
Concernin' this flag,
Which, in school, when we studied, no kid that's full-blooded,
Could help but to brag;
We can sit an' say ‘s'posin' there rushed any foes in
To do us some dirt,
We would straighten up stiff, an' take part in the tiff,
Though we went dead or hurt';
We kin sit an' reflect in a manner correct,
Feelin' Patr'tism's thrill,
An' it's all straight an' true: but what good kin it do,
Ef we've got to keep still?
“An' these folks that forbid us to lift up the lid
In the old-fashioned way,
They can noise up an' down, through the country or town,
Ev'ry night—ev'ry day;
An' their mob'les kin creak an' their whistles kin speak,
Sayin' ‘Out of the way!’
An' we boys hev to mind 'em, or lay down behind 'em,
Dead, 'fore we are gray.
“An the bands' horns can sing like some many-voiced thing,
An' the drummers kin pound,
An' there's no one I see 'cept us men that's to be,
Re'lly stinted in sound;
An' the day it is free, jest as fur's I kin see,
In the general joy,
For all hands to make noise—'ceptin' only jest boys!”
Moaned the firecracker boy.