The Independence Day Horror at Killsbury Part 1

The Independence Day Horror at Killsbury.

by Asenath Carver Coolidge.

CHAPTER I.

THE CORNWALLIS COTTAGE.

It was Independence Day. The sun rose gorgeously. The air was electric and inspiring. Blossoming plants were exhaling rare fragrance. The forests and rivers were palpitating with glad, soft sounds and gentle fervor. The birds were singing jubilantly, and various forms of living things were alert and antic. Yes, it was "Independence Day in the morning" as the Killsbury boys called it. It was full of glorious promise--the list of the dead and wounded had not as yet come in!

Apparently there were not half a dozen people in the town who would have admitted that there would be any casualties on the day that had dawned so beautifully; although there had been an increasing number of them every year since Millionaire Schwarmer had come and built his mansion on "The Hill" and decorated its brow with a big-mouthed cannon.

The cannon began to boom as soon as the sun appeared above the horizon. It continued to boom industriously as though it were determined to wake up every citizen in Killsbury and the surrounding country to the important fact that "Independence Day had really and truly and unmistakably dawned," as Captain Dan Solomon facetiously remarked. It was a fact that would have been well known and appreciated, at least by every inmate of the Cornwallis Cottage, even though there had been no cannon on Schwarmer Hill to vomit it forth; for the reason that the sole son of the house, Laurens Angelo Cornwallis, had been born on that day.

Little Laurens Angelo Cornwallis was the most beautiful boy in Killsbury, "or the whole world," averred the Reverend Dr. Normander, who had baptised him and had traveled the world nearly enough over to make a correct estimate with regard to the part that remained. Yes, and he was as good and bright as he was beautiful--the joy of his mother, the pride of his father and to his sister Ruth the "dear angel," as she called him, so it goes without saying that his birthday would have been celebrated with due love and honor even if he had not been born on Independence Day; although there might not have been such a showing of red, white and blue--probably no more than one American flag, with an English and French flag lovingly intertwined (for Mr. Cornwallis was of English descent and his wife of French descent) whereas now there were flags on the four corners of the cottage, and over all the doors and windows both inside and outside and a generous display of bunting everywhere.

"A double quant.i.ty" as Mr. Cornwallis was wont to ask for when he bought a new supply of colors.

"One half to celebrate our boy's birthday and the other half to celebrate our Nation's birthday. You see we don't intend to be partial."

And when the shopman, who inclined to think that love of one's own country meant hate of all other countries, remarked "there are some who say that we should love our country more than our wives and children," Mr. Cornwallis replied: "I haven't got to that point yet and I doubt if I ever shall. I don't intend to make burnt sacrifices on any altar."

While he was arranging the flags the Reverend Dr. Normander called.

"You see, Doctor, I love Mother England and Sister France very well indeed, but I love America supremely."

"Yes I see," replied Dr. Normander, "and I know it is very easy to love our own country; but to love other countries equally well--in other words to love our neighbors as ourselves--there's the rub, Mr. Cornwallis."

"I recognize the beauty of equality, Doctor," laughed Mr. Cornwallis, "and I think I might be able to love other countries as well as my own country after a great deal of practice and very possibly, my neighbor as well as myself, but I fear I could never love my neighbor's boy as well as I love my own boy. I hope I am taking a step in the right direction when I pay equal honor to my country's birthday and to his."

Little Ruth caught her father's spirit as by infection. Every Fourth of July she arose as soon as the cannon began to boom and running out into the dewy or rainy garden, whichever it happened to be, she picked two great bunches of red and white flowers and arranged them in two blue vases and put one at the end of the table where mamma sat and the other at the end where papa sat in honor of the two birthdays.

Mrs. Cornwallis made a new patriotic suit for her darling boy each year. This year it was a quaint George Was.h.i.+ngton suit in red, white and blue with a cute Can't-tell-a-lie cap, all spangled with stars.

After breakfast was over, she spread the suit out on the bed in her room. She was going to give her boy a bath preparatory to putting it on.

The cannon on Schwarmer Hill began to boom again just as Laurens was stepping into his little bath tub. The boy s.h.i.+vered.

"What makes you s.h.i.+ver so, Laurens? Is the water too cold?" asked his mother.

"O no, mamma! It's the cannon I'm s.h.i.+vering at. It made the house s.h.i.+ver. What makes them have it so awful loud?"

"So as to be sure and make everybody hear, Laurens."

"I think a bugle would be better, mamma."

"So do I, my boy, but I suppose Mr. Schwarmer doesn't."

"I'm afraid of Mr. Schwarmer, mamma. He gave Benny Horton something that blew his eye out last Fourth."

"So am I, my boy. Fireworks are not fit for little boys to handle. They smell bad, they are bad, dangerous and noisy."

She was rubbing his white satiny skin with her soft hands. She stopped short and added: "If he ever offers you any, you will refuse to take them, and you will tell him what mamma says about them, won't you darling?"

He threw his arms around her neck and kissed her.

"Yes, mamma, I will. You don't want your little boy to have his eyes put out, do you?" he said pathetically.

"No indeed, Laurens," cried the mother turning around to get his new pants and brush away a tear.

"Mamma, the gardener said my old pants were holy. What did he mean?"

"He meant you had worn holes in them, Laurens?"

"What did the Sunday-school teacher mean when she said the war we are going to celebrate today was a holy war? Did she mean we had worn holes in it? Worn it out?"

"No," laughed Mamma, "she meant it was a war to make the English give us our own things just as you would fight if a dog should try to eat up your dinner."

"O mamma, I would give poor doggy my dinner if he were hungry," said Laurens, with tears in his eyes.

"Yes, I know you would, my darling, but if you were hungry and he would not let you have any, what then?"

"I would pet and coax him, mamma, until he let me have some."

Mrs. Cornwallis gave up the argument and hugged and kissed her boy to her heart's content. But Laurens did not give it up so easily. When she was fastening his ruffled s.h.i.+rt front with her beautiful sapphire b.u.t.tons which were a part of his father's wedding gift, he touched her on the forehead and said: "Please tell me, mamma, what kind of animals the English are? Bridget calls them 'Johnny Bulls.' Do they look like our bulls?"

"No, no, my child. They look like ourselves. Like your papa. Your grandpapa came from England when he was a little boy about your age."

"O mamma! You don't know how s'prised I am. I thought the English were a sort of bulls--dangerous bulls, that pitched into our grandpas with their horns and they had to kill them or be hooked to death."

"No, Laurens, they were men, but they wronged us."

"I think it would be awful to kill anybody just for that, mamma."

"So it seems to you now, my boy, but when you have grown to be a man--" she hesitated. A sudden fear shot through her heart. Was it that she was not teaching him quite right, or was it that of an impending sorrow? Then she added with a sigh: "The Lord only knows, Laurens. I hope you may think the same; but I fear you will think quite differently."

Later on his toilet was finished and a miniature George Was.h.i.+ngton stood before her looking up into her face with the Can't-tell-a-lie expression so dear to her heart.

"There, you may go now and get your kite. Ruth must have gotten the streamers all tied on by this time."

He ran to his sister's room, and she put the beautiful new kite that Ralph Norwood had made on purpose for him, into his chubby little hand and watched him in an ecstacy of admiration as he ran down through the garden and out into the big sunny field where he was going to make it fly.

Then she went into mamma's room; for they were going to take each of them a sweet, sweet bath and make everything ready for the beautiful home celebration. The table was to be loaded with refreshments that were truly refres.h.i.+ng for a hot day, and little Laurens was to have a birthday cake with eight roses (to tell how old he was) circling around a tiny flag on a tiny staff made of a goose-quill in imitation of the famous one with which the American Declaration of Independence was signed.

The Reverend Dr. Normander and family were to be there and Ralph Norwood and his brothers. They would have music and singing and the children might play at fort-building out in the fragrant garden; but they would have no "nasty fireworks," as Mrs. Cornwallis called them.

She was a true Frenchwoman in her tastes, although truly American in education, and would not have the sweet smelling plot of ground on which she had spent so much of her spare time, turned into a pit of vile-smelling powder and brimstone. She resolutely maintained that she could show her intense patriotism in better, safer, and more odorous ways. And she did it to the entire satisfaction of everybody in Killsbury unless it might be Millionaire Schwarmer who came to his mansion on The Hill every Fourth of July, boomed his cannon and distributed free fireworks among the boys of the town, "in grateful remembrance," he said, "of the fact that he was born there."

Mrs. Cornwallis said to her husband that it was a pity he could not show his grat.i.tude in more agreeable and useful ways, but she did not say so in public or brood over it in private. She was a very busy housewife and devoted mother and had no time to cultivate even the necessary grievances.

Mr. Cornwallis was in sympathy with his wife's opinions; but as yet it had not occurred to him that free fireworks, (like free whiskey) were any worse for the town than those that were regularly bought and paid for. As to the legal restrictions necessary with regard to the sale and manufacture of explosives for the celebration of our national day, he was beginning to be very outspoken.

CHAPTER II.

THE ROUND ABOUT ROAD TO SCHWARMER MANSION.

There were two roads leading up to the Schwarmer Mansion from the town of Killsbury. One of them was called "The Straight Way" and the other "The Round About Road." The latter followed the steep declivity that led down to the river's edge and pa.s.sed the big lot that belonged to the Cornwallis grounds.

"Guess I'd better take the 'Round About' with all that heavy baggage of yours, Mr. Schwarmer," said Captain Dan Solomon, the expressman at the station. "There's a loose board in the bridge on the 'Straight Way' that my filly don't exactly approve of."

"Just as you choose, Dan," replied Mr. Schwarmer. "It doesn't make a cent's worth of difference to me, most a.s.suredly it doesn't. How long before you'll be around?"

"As soon as I can. Things are a little irregular today, you know."

"Certainly! certainly Dan! Independence Day is every dog's day, most a.s.suredly it is; and business concerns are apt to move rather circuitously. Fons," he added, turning to a youthful looking lad at his side, "suppose we take 'The Round About,' since there's no carriage and we have to walk. We might as well make it worth while, you know. I haven't walked around that way for years, most a.s.suredly I haven't."

Fons a.s.sented and they walked on at a brisk pace.

"How many of those patriotic packages have you, Fons?"

"If you mean my improvements on 'The Sacred Mandarin,'" laughed Fons, "I have enough yet to hold up the town, although I left a good sprinkling of them at every station and sowed them about six deep among the employees while you were hunting up Dan. I'm going to advertise in earnest this time."

"Well, I've got half a dozen. That will be enough. We won't be apt to meet more than one or two boys after we branch off if we do any. They didn't expect me on this train. Most a.s.suredly they didn't; but they'll flock up to the gates in due time--by the time Dan gets there I reckon."

They went on, distributing fire-crackers and blank cartridges to every boy they met and every poor looking fellow also.

When they got to the Cornwallis lot Fons espied little Laurens in the distance flying his kite.

"Heigho! what gay little patriotic bird is that?" exclaimed Fons. "He's worth the ammunition."

Schwarmer stopped and put on his gold-rimmed magnifiers.

"That's little Laurens Cornwallis--the handsomest boy in Killsbury or the world, they say. You've heard me speak of the Cornwallis's, most a.s.suredly you have. They are not eminently patriotic, I suspect, though they display the colors. We'll see how the eaglet stands affected toward his country this morning."

Schwarmer went to the fence and beckoned the boy to come to him.

Laurens came on a little distance but stopped when he recognized Schwarmer.

"Come on, my pretty" said Schwarmer, "I will give you a nice new box of powdered crackers to help you celebrate. You can make them go off without the aid of the fickle wind."

Laurens shook his curly head vigorously. "I don't want any. I told mamma I would not touch Mr. Schwarmer's fire-things." Then he turned and ran away from them as fast as his little legs could carry him.

"How's that for frankness?" sneered Fons as they moved on. "It beats you who are a professional, 'all the way to Buzzard's Bay,' as the boys say."

"Yes, and it looks rather dull for your trade, Fons," laughed Schwarmer rather derisively. "Perhaps you had better put your inventive genius into some other business. It's pretty poor encouragement when you can't even give away your productions. Most a.s.suredly it is."

"It's doubtful policy to begin at the church door," said Fons. "More stars and stripes and fewer fireworks is the church idea. I never see such a boy as that--with a regular Sunday School look and eyes rolled up--without wanting to call him down. The most beautiful Laurens needs a giant firecracker and a dynamite cap and cane to bring him down to the proper alt.i.tude. They don't teach fire and brimstone in the churches now, so it's necessary for the youngsters to get a smell of it from the outside."

"Military slang aside, Fons. His mother is cosseting him and making a sort of an inspired idiot of him, most a.s.suredly she is. He is a beauty--too much of a beauty for a boy; but he will never be fit for business. But mothers never think of things in a business way and Mrs. Cornwallis is the main spoke in Cornwallis' wheel, most a.s.suredly she is."

"A wheel of domesticity all around I should judge," laughed Fons. "Cornwallis is no business man."

"No, Fons--only a counter of other men's gains--no independent money-maker, so to speak. He would refuse to make money in your kind of business or mine either. He makes a terrible hullabaloo every time a little ragam.u.f.fin gets hurt with blank cartridges or toy pistols. He wants the manufactories shut down at once. He'd rather take the risk of having six youngsters starved to death, than to have one die of lockjaw."

"I should say he ought to have the lockjaw himself and any other man who uses his jaw for the repression of legitimate trade. Faugh! we've no use for such effeminates on this end of the planet where more big manufactories are needed to keep it well balanced. I should like to see his jaw locked up."

"O no! not quite so bad as that, Fons."

"Yes, worse than that," continued Fons angrily. "Shut up our own manufactories and send abroad for Fourth of July fireworks! That's the kind of business fiend or fool he is--send to the English for things to celebrate our victory over them. Bah!"

"But we never have, Fons--that is to any ridiculous extent--any alarming extent, so to speak?"

"But we will if the idiots that would shut down our Pyrotechnic manufactories are not shut up. The London Pyro-king is trying to king it here now by catering to the Independence Day sentiment. He hates it, but he is going to coin money out of it all the same--the viper!"

"Head him off, then! Rule him out! We ought to manufacture our own implements--especially the patriotic ones and handle them too and teach our boys how to handle them. If we would teach them how to be brave and do brave things--really dare to do them, it would be better all around--the planet included, most a.s.suredly it would."

Fons made no reply to Schwarmer's rather ragged reasoning, but when he got to the top of the hill he broke out: "Excuse me. I'm going back to see if I can't put a little of the dare devil stuff into that all too goodish boy. I must have a little fun out of him anyway."

"Don't be gone long, Fons. You must be here when your patriotic stuffs are unloaded. I don't care to be near enough to smell powder if they should be handled too roughly or by the wrong end."

"It's the little idiot that sits down on my trade that will be likely to smell of the powdered beauties," laughed Fons sardonically.

"Have a care, youngster. You can't cut up here as you can in the city without having it known."

"O! it's only a little scare I'll treat him to. Boys like to be scared, you know. That's the secret of success in the money end of the Pyrotechnic business."

Before he got back to the Cornwallis lot, he saw the baggage-man coming up the hill.

"Heigho," he exclaimed, slapping his leg--"just in the nick of time! Providence permits! Now I will have some fun. Stop a bit, Dan. I want an a.s.sortment of that patriotic fervor. I am going to have a little picnic with some boys right here if nothing happens."

After he had selected the things he wanted, he slipped a dollar into Dan's hand, saying, "you may go on now, but you'd better stay up with us today, you and your nag, and help us celebrate. The women folks didn't come and you haven't any of those 'pull backs,' Schwarmer tells me, so we can have a very free time."

Dan laughed and moved on. Fons carried his boxes to a shady nook on the steep bank just opposite the lot where Laurens Cornwallis was still flying his kite. After he had arranged them he stopped and looked at them with a satisfied air. Then he selected a thing with spiral stripes of red, white and blue.

"This will take the boy's eye at once," he said to himself as he climbed the hill to go to the Cornwallis lot. "I must have invented it for his kind of eye--a sort of Aaron's rod--yes, that's what I'll name it--a bible name. That will be ahead of King Pang's 'Sacred Mandarin.' It's just the ticker for a little Sunday school chub like Laurens."