Before safety regulations...

"From the top of the flagpole, up against the blue sky, the Stars and Stripes were fluttering. Everybody looked at the American flag, and Almanzo sang with all his might. 

...

The band came marching down the street, and they all ran along beside it. The flag was gloriously waving in front, then came the buglers blowing and the fifers tootling and the drummer rattling the drumsticks on the drum. Up the street and down the street were the band, with all the boys following it, and then it stopped in the Square by the brass cannons. 

...

Then all the boys ran to pull grass and weeds along the railroad tracks. They carried them by armfuls to the cannons, and the men crowded the weeds into the cannons' muzzles and drove them down with the long rods. 

A bonfire was burning by the railroad tracks, and long iron rods were heating in it. 

When all the weeds and grass had been packed tight against the powder in the cannons, a man took a little more powder in his hand and carefully filled the two little touchholes in the barrels. Now everybody was shouting: 

'Stand back! Stand back!'

Mother took hold of Almanzo's arm and made him come away with her. He told her: 

'Aw, Mother, they're only loaded with powder and weeds. I won't get hurt, Mother. I'll be careful, honest.' But she made him come away from the cannons. 

Two men took the long iron rods from the fire. Everybody was still, watching. Standing as far behind the cannons as they could, the two men stretched out the rods and touched their red-hot tips to the touchholes. A little flame like a candle-flame flickered up from the powder. The little flames stood there burning; nobody breathed. Then - BOOM! 

The cannons leaped backward, the air was full of flying grass and weeds. Almanzo ran with all the other boys to feel the warm muzzles of the cannons. Everybody was exclaiming about what a loud noise they had made. 

'That's the noise that made the Redcoats fun!' Mr. Paddock said to Father. 

'Maybe,' Father said, tugging his beard. 'But it was muskets that won the Revolution. And don't forget it was axes and plows that made this country.' 

'That's so, come to think of it,' Mr. Paddock said."

Read Farmer Boy chapter 16 "Independence Day" for the full story of Almanzo's Fourth of July! That's only a small sample of the fun AND insightful stories in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy. 


Come back on Friday for more Little House-inspired fun!
Elizabeth