The Independence Day Horror at Killsbury Part 9

"What nonsense, Adelaide! I guess she can stand it since the small boy is not permitted to have a hand in it."

"No she can't, father. It isn't nonsense. How would you feel if I should be brought to you tomorrow all torn to pieces as her little brother was?"

"O, my dear child! don't mention it!"

"But I must mention it and I want you to look straight into my eyes and answer me truly! Suppose I should be brought home to you this Fourth with my eyes both blown out and mamma's jewels lodged in the sockets, do you think you could ever bear the sight or sound of horrid explosive things after that--bear them without a shudder--even if they were in the hands of grown-up people?"

"Such a thing never could happen, Addie."

"It did happen to Ruth's little brother. The jewels were his mother's wedding sapphires."

"O Addie! Addie!"

"Answer me truly, father."

"No, dear child, I never could."

"Ruth can't either. She has more reason than you could have. She's like poor Mary, the gardener's wife. Her husband and parents know it wouldn't be safe for her to come if there's going to be guns or things of that sort. She wants to come so much that Ralph was going to speak to you and see if they couldn't be left out; but I told him I was the one to speak, because the Library was going to be named for me."

"Well, there is something in that, Adelaide, most a.s.suredly there is; but it's rather short notice. The military company were coming on the morning train."

"Telegraph. You'd do it if stocks were in jeopardy--you know you would--you are such a hustler."

"Of course, of course! Here it goes then. I can't ruin my reputation as a hustler," said Schwarmer, stepping to the 'phone and calling up the regiment. "Don't come to the dedication of The Adelaide Library."

"Now, there's one hustle for you, what next?" laughed Schwarmer. Adelaide laughed too and clapped her hands.

"O! isn't it jolly, father! The soldiers can stay at home for once and dear, sweet, little Mrs. Ruth can come."

"What next, Addie? I've got on my hustling cap. Call off."

"The Independence Day racket band and the rockets must be left out of the procession, father."

"O! now! that strikes nearer home, Addie! But I can do it. I can hustle things near by, most a.s.suredly I can, if I once set out with my hustling suit all on. Bombs will have to confine his fire to Yorktown if I say so, won't he?"

"Yes, and you'll say so, won't you, father?"

"Yes, Addie, I'll say so if you really want me to; but aren't you afraid it will hurt Bombs' feelings to have his precious rockets left out in the dark, so to speak. He has invented a new kind on purpose for daylight show--very rich and dark and velvety, exceedingly so, and he has named it the 'Airy Navy Rocket.' I suppose he intends it for a hit at Lord Tennyson's 'airy navies grappling in the central blue,' and no doubt but they'd get hurt if they should ever materialize sufficiently to get hit with Bombs' rockets," laughed Schwarmer, looking at Adelaide, keenly. He was wondering how she stood affected toward the young man.

"Airy Navy Rocket!" exclaimed Adelaide. "I won't have it. I don't care if his feelings are hurt. You know how his horrid rocket hurt poor Mary. It killed her baby, hurt her feelings and made her sick. She and her children are going over to Ruth's to stay the night of the Fourth. She is afraid to stay with us. O dear! dear! I think it's dreadful to have our own people feel that way toward us. I can't endure it. I thought the Common Council had pa.s.sed a law against sending off dangerous rockets."

"They have, but it didn't include Bombs' brand-fired new navy rocket; and even if it had a few little fines wouldn't cramp him much," laughed Schwarmer.

"But I include it. I say he has no business to put those hissing horrors into the Adelaide Library procession. I won't have the Library named Adelaide if he does."

"Good for Adelaide," laughed Schwarmer. "That ends it. I promise. What next? There is something more. I see it in your eye."

"Yes. There is one thing more. Promise not to have the cannon let off. Ruth doesn't like to hear it and it makes her mother cry, because little Laurens s.h.i.+vered when he heard it the morning before he was killed, and asked her why you didn't have a bugle?"

Schwarmer turned quickly to the 'phone and called up a music-dealer: "Please send me at once the best bugle and bugler that there is in the market."

"That's all, dear blessed father. I'm so happy! What a truly glorious time we are going to have," cried Adelaide, as she danced out of the office and hastened away to the Library to tell Ruth the good news. She did not tell her about the bugle; but it came in time to speak for itself.

It's sweet notes penetrated the Cornwallis cottage as the Fourth of July dawned. Mr. and Mrs. Cornwallis were asleep when the first note came. When the second note came Mrs. Cornwallis awoke and wondered if she were still on earth. She had dreamed of being in Heaven with Laurens and listening to a bugle call. It seemed so real to her that she shook her husband's arm.

"The bugle! The bugle! Did you hear it? Are we in Heaven?"

"Not quite, Angeline, but I think we are happier than we have been in years and I do hear a bugle. It's time for the cannon. Do you suppose anybody could have put it into Schwarmer's head to have a bugle instead of a cannon?"

Ruth and Ralph were awake when the first note sounded. She was gathering up her nerves for the booming of the cannon and Ralph was saying: "I believe Miss Schwarmer would influence her father to do away with that monster if she knew how it hurt you and especially your mother."

"She does know it, Ralph, and I believe she has done it," exclaimed Ruth, springing up and listening intently. "Yes, Ralph, don't you hear it? It's a bugle! Really a bugle!"

Another note sweeter and louder greeted them.

"Yes, it is a bugle and a very fine one. What a blessed creature Adelaide Schwarmer is!" said Ralph.

Ruth could not speak. Her heart was so full of gladness, but she indulged in what Ralph called "a happy cry."

CHAPTER XX.

THE DEDICATION OF THE LIBRARY.

The dedication of the library proved to be a very enjoyable affair although the military "fuss and feather," the Independence Day racket and the ostentatious hoisting of flags were left out. It was more like a church dedication, minus the mounted marshals and uniformed cadets which are among the latter day improvements or experiments. The Schwarmers stood out more conspicuously than they would otherwise have done; but they were no more so than the Killsbury people felt that they had a right to be. Mrs. Schwarmer was in regal robes with which the ladies were much pleased. Mrs. Martin nodded to Mrs. Arundel and said: "She has honored us at last by putting on her best apparel."

Adelaide was dressed in a lovely white mull. n.o.body had noticed until then how very pretty she had grown. Mr. Schwarmer insisted on wearing his plain business suit as it was eminently proper he should since he had to do the main business part--that is, hand over the deeds to the Town. That being done he made a short characteristic speech, in which he said: "This building is not a monument to myself, most a.s.suredly it is not; but it would have been if the architect had carried his point. He planned to have a giraffe style of tower, which was to rise about sixty feet above the roof and be furnished with a bell that would weigh 3,000 pounds and peal out every hour of the day and night. But as it was going to be a gift to the people and named after my daughter I thought they ought to have something to say about it, and they did; most a.s.suredly they did (cheers and laughter). You see, my dear friends and fellow citizens, I have discarded the old barbarous saying--'Never look a gift-horse in the mouth.' Hereafter my maxim will be: Look a gift horse in the mouth very carefully and pay particular attention to his grinders. (Laughter and applause.) But, as I was saying, the architect's plan was handed over to the Golden Rule President and referred to the people--'all the people,' my daughter included, and they decided that the giraffe tower and thunderous bell would be a superfluity if not a nuisance, most a.s.suredly they did. They decided that they did not want to be kept awake nights by the clanging and the whanging of a brazen bell. Also that they had never had any trouble finding out the time of day."

Schwarmer sat down amidst cries of "Good, good!" "Schwarmer's a wit." "What's the matter with Schwarmer? He's a wit. He's a wit."

Mrs. Schwarmer was to do the naming of the library as Adelaide was under age; and so it was highly proper and natural that Adelaide should stand between her father and mother during the process; and she did stand between them with her slender hands resting on an arm of each and looking as one of the Killsburyians remarked, "for all the world as though she were going to fly."

She really did feel happy enough to fly when she saw the radiant faces of Ruth and Ralph and of Mrs. and Mr. Cornwallis, who had come on from Chicago on purpose to attend the dedication.

Yes, the people of Killsbury really did enjoy this peaceful, home-like affair. Although they may not have been fully aware of it, they really enjoyed it much more than they possibly could, if there had been a whole regiment of strange soldiers to take all the best seats and leave them to hang on the outside and peer in at the doors and windows. They enjoyed the speeches, for all the speech-makers in town were there, the Golden Rule President and Father Ferrill inclusive. They would not have heard a word of them if they had been pushed to the background, with an Independence day racket in the rear. Besides it was so much more in harmony with books and the spirits that made them or would wish to commune with them, than the ordinary civic fuss and noise would have been.

Mr. Bombs did not attend. Indeed why should he? He had no interest in it after his new rockets were left out and he was almost as much a stranger in the community as the soldier would have been. Besides he was going to rehea.r.s.e his piece.

Adelaide appreciated the former reason and Mr. Schwarmer the latter.

"That's right, Fons," said Mr. Schwarmer, "you must have your siege all fixed so n.o.body will get hurt, most a.s.suredly you must. You'd better leave out some of the most striking things than to have anybody struck blind. I don't know of anybody on this side of the drink that would be willing to be made black and blue all over or have his hair burned off by the falling of a burning tower, as old Crags did at a Pyro-show in London."

"You forget that even his willingness didn't hold out," laughed Bombs. "He clothed himself with asbestos for the last night."

"Don't know as I blame him much and I'm sure Addie wouldn't blame him at all, most a.s.suredly I am," nodded Schwarmer significantly.

Adelaide and her mother came out a moment later dressed for the library. Bombs looked at Adelaide as though he had never seen her before, made his lowest bow and went to his rehearsal. It was well he did for one of the Pyro-men was on the point of charging a motor that would have laid Yorktown in ashes before the siege began.

As it was, however, the siege came off at the appointed time and was witnessed by a large majority of the people of Killsbury besides the Schwarmer guests that came up on the evening train.

The best that can be said of the siege is that it pa.s.sed off very smoothly and without incident. Historically considered it was just about as valuable as the famous pyro-show of the burning of Rome, where Nero goes down beneath a falling pillar of fire. The siege of Yorktown ended with the going down of Lord Cornwallis and his 8,000 soldiers into the pyrotechnic gulf especially prepared for them.

The audience applauded and Adelaide was feeling relieved to think that all was over when a vociferous encore set in and Mr. Bombs came on the stage. He looked amazingly brilliant. He had all his jewels on surely, and more too, she thought. There seemed to be a nest of them in the curl of jet black hair on his forehead. Was he going to do that tiresome siege over again? No, he would make a bow and a speech, and that would end it certainly.

He began: "The London Pyro-king who boasts of his prowess in this country, has invented a piece which he calls 'Eagle Screams'. Turn about is fair play. I have invented a piece which I have named 'Johnny Bull's Bellows.' You will now have the pleasure or grief of looking Johnny full in the face and listening to his bellowings."

He bowed again more politely and gracefully than before--as graceful as a--serpent, she finally put it and "polite enough to shake hands with a crab," as the Indians say. She had never seen him look so splendid--so--startling; but she liked him less than ever.

The bull's head that was formed while Adelaide was forming her opinions was shaped like a veritable bull's head and outlined with stars of small magnitude. From its mouth and nostrils issued great streams of different colored fires. The bellowings were effectively but mysteriously produced.

"I can't see faw the life of me, Mr. Bombs, just how you could have compa.s.sed all that," Miss Drawling was saying, when something in the nature of a revelation cut short her sentence. The bellowings suddenly ceased and loud oaths and grumblings and groanings took their place. Mr. Bombs rushed behind the scenes and saw the man whom he had engaged to do the bellowing, lying in a collapsed condition on the floor of the stage with a whiskey bottle in his hand.

"Confound you!" exclaimed Bombs, "what does all this mean?"

"It means that the lungs av me have been giving out with the dress rehearsal and the play on top av it and I am sthriving to reinforce them."

"Allow me to say that your efforts are not successful. You can be excused until further notice, and you," he added turning to the chief Pyro, "will oblige me by winding up the spectacle without any more swearing."

The spectacle of Johnny Bull's Bellows was wound up according to order and Mr. Bombs appeared on the stage and gave a humorous account of the complication behind the scenes which had cut off the spectacle rather prematurely, and added that it was not quite so bad as the thing that had happened to Mr. Pang on his first presentation of the burning of Rome. He related the incident and the guests were greatly amused--almost as much, perhaps, as they would have been if "Johnny Bull's Bellowings" had been carried out to the full extent.

And so, Mr. Bombs fancied he had not failed after all. If he had done nothing more he had proved himself to have the proper personality for the making of a successful Pyro-King. He could fascinate and mystify the public. "You see," he said to Adelaide the next morning, "I might better have such accidents and experiences now than when I get about my larger piece--'The Battle of the Wilderness.'"

"The Battle of the Wilderness!" exclaimed Adelaide. "Is it possible you are going to try making an amus.e.m.e.nt out of that dreadful battle?"

"Yes, it's a possibility," laughed Bombs, "and I know of another possibility, that will match it beautifully."

"What is it, Mr. Bombs?"

"That Miss Adelaide Schwarmer will not be so scrupulous about such matters when I return from Europe as she is now."

"Why do you think so, Mr. Bombs? Have you changed that way since you were my age?"

"No, Miss Adelaide, but I was a boy and you are a girl."

"What difference could that make, Mr. Bombs."

"A mighty sight of difference, Miss Adelaide. You were not educated or expected to have anything to do with business concerns. I was and with the very biggest kind, and they all mean war, more or less."

"O dear, how dreadful! I can't understand it at all, Mr. Bombs."

"Of course you can't, Miss Adelaide. No truly good woman can. Business, especially of the vasty kind is a devil incarnate in her pure eyes."

"And it seems to me that your kind of business is the worst of all, Mr. Bombs, and that there's no need of it in this world."

"Can't you think of something more consoling? This is your last chance. I am going to the city tomorrow to see King Pang beat himself in his twenty-fifth saturnalia of fire. Then to Chicago to see him help the Chicagoians beat the St. Louis dedication and re-burn the city. After that I will start out on what you have called my 'worst of all business.'"

Adelaide thought of Laurens Cornwallis' tragic death, of Mary Langley's fright and the poor man with the exhausted lungs; but she did not speak until the silence had become unbearable to Mr. Bombs and he asked: "What is it, Miss Adelaide? Why don't you speak out?"

"Hus.h.!.+ Mr. Bombs. I am listening! I thought I heard a voice. Your mother's or mine."

They were discouraging words for the last--almost cruel he thought for him who had known nothing of mother love and very little of parental care. They made him feel like a savage almost. He went to Miss Drawling for an offset. He knew he could get enough encouragement there and he did find more than enough. Not but what he liked her flattery but the personality behind it. Faugh! It was simply disgusting. Any woman who could think and talk as she did, was worse than a man. She was a brute. Would it be ever thus, was one of the questions he asked himself. Was one truly loveable creature going to say things to him that would not be endurable in themselves and was another going to say opposite things which would make herself a creature to be abhorred. With the unreasonableness of the youthful man he hoped to find a mean between the two--that is a woman who would love himself most deeply and devotedly even while she was finding fault with and condoning his business enterprise. He did not realize it but it was as much as to say that he knew he was launching out in an unrighteous course; but that he was determined not to turn from it for the love of any creature whatever. Adelaide understood his att.i.tude toward herself and she did not care a rush for it; but there was something about his att.i.tude to others which she did not fully understand. It was struggling to light and it filled her soul with dread.

CHAPTER XXI.

ADELAIDE STAYS AT HOME WITH HER FATHER.

Mr. Bombs did not go to Chicago alone nor as soon as he intended. He planned to go at the first breaking out of the Centennial, which was to be on the day when Chicago was exactly one hundred years old. The city was expected to be in an unusual state of ferment from the beginning; and many things were going to be done to herald the coming glory of the Jubilee week, among the most important of which was to be the much advertised re-burning of the city.

"King Pang is trying to keep his fires to the front; but his 'ads' will cost him something," laughed Bombs scornfully; "for there are others and others and they are going to make a big show of everything, from a razor-back porker to a Golden Rule Mayor. It will be tedious."

"Everything 'from a jacka.s.s to a lyre,' as the Romans say," remarked Miss Drawling.

"Yes, and you might spell it l-i-a-r," sneered Bombs. "I don't believe Pang will be there."

"Then why do you go so soon?" asked Mrs. Schwarmer. "You will die of te-di-um--not te-deum. There! Mr. Bombs you have spoiled me. I never made a pun before in my life. I had rather make a pie than a pun."

They all laughed and Bombs said he "must obey his royal father's mandate, and find out all he could about Pang's trade, with or without King Pang's aid."

"Perhaps if you will wait a little we will go with you and try to divide the tedium into shares," suggested Mrs. Schwarmer, whereupon there occurred a large amount of social banter which finally ended in a declaration from the ladies that if he would wait they would surely accompany him; and a declaration from him that if they would surely accompany him, he would surely wait.

"And you, Miss Adelaide, and Mr. Schwarmer--you will go and take shares with us, will you not?" asked Bombs.

"Say no, father. We don't want any stock in the Chicago Jubilee. Let's stay here together," said Adelaide.

"Of course we will stay and keep house, Addie--that is, eat up our dividends, so to speak."

"Good! Good!" laughed Adelaide.

"Indeed, Miss Adelaide! Won't you feel rather lonely to have us all flit away?"

"No, Mr. Bombs. I can go to see Ruth every day and the faithful Dombey will be my escort. I like it here. It's so beautiful, still and sweet. I would not go to Chicago and be in all that smoke, dust, fire, dynamite and stuff for anything. O how happy we are going to be here, aren't we father?"

"Yes, Addie, quite comfortable, I reckon. Of course we shall miss them, most a.s.suredly we shall; but we'll try and not grow thin over it," laughed Schwarmer.