"I'm glad it ain't _my_ ball," remarked Gizzard with an affected lack of interest.
"It don't make any diff whose ball it is!" Sube glowered over his reclining chum. "You'll go and get that ball or I'll--"
"Hi, fellers! I've earned twenty cents already this morning!" came a voice from behind them.
This was from Biscuit Westfall, who had just emerged from the parsonage tugging a long set of quilting-frames.
"Throw in that ball, will you, Biscuit?" called Gizzard pleasantly. "It's right by the big elm tree."
Biscuit laid down his burden and complied with the request. Cordial relations were instantly restored.
"Gee! But there's go'n'ta be an ever-glorious bonfire to-night," Sube observed. "The kids have got two sheds back of the Gibson Block jus' cram-full of boxes and barrels--"
"Yes, but there ain't go'n'ta be no bells rung!" was Gizzard's discouraging interjection.
"'Cause the board of trustees won't let us ring the firebell, and all the churches have put their solid-ivories together and agreed not to let their bells be rung! That's why not!"
"I guess I know what's in the paper! Don't you read the _Citizen_?"
"Now what do you know about that!" exclaimed Sube disgustedly. "Ain't that a nice way to celebrate the ever-glorious Fourth!"
"I call it _rotten_!" replied Gizzard feelingly; but it is safe to say that his feelings were aroused more by Sube's continued repetition of his new phrase, than disappointment over the modified form of welcome to the festal day prescribed by certain unpatriotic grown-ups who seemed to have forgotten that they once were young.
The neither-here-nor-there expression still rankled in Gizzard's memory, and now Sube was adding vinegar to the wound. But Gizzard realized the importance of keeping his feelings to himself. He knew that greater misery would be his lot if Sube ever found out how he felt about it.
"Rotten's no name for it," agreed Sube, scowling. "I guess those ol' guys have forgot how we signed that Declaration of Independence from Germany--"
"Germany!" howled Gizzard derisively. "You said Germany! Why, it wasn't Germany at all! It was _France_!"
"France nothin'! I tell you it was Germany!"
"Look here! They was red-coats, now wasn't they?"
"Yes, but the France soldiers wear red _pants_! Don't you know the diff between pants and coats! Ha-ha! Can't tell the diff between pants and coats!"