Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1896 — THE SMALL BOY’S DELIGHT. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE SMALL BOY’S DELIGHT.

Fourth of July with Its Flags and Firecrackers Is the Day of All Days.

IHE small boy’s life would not be worth living without a Fourth of July celebration. Christmas, with fill the fine presents that old Santa Claus, with a heart in him as big as a woodchuck, can shower on a boy is all very nice, and the turkey and pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving Day are not to be lightly passed over, but for out-and-out fun, with no aftermath of stomach

aches ,and disappointments, Fourth of July is’the holiday of holidays. ' It begins for the boy a month or two back, when he begins to hoard up pennies and get estimates on the probable cost of firecrackers. The day itself begins when he finds the harbingers of the morning sing the joliiest songs to the tune of the booming "fit“ Cannons ahd the merry explosions of firecrackers. T’he fun never slacks while daylight lasts, aud'tho evening is closed with a dazzling display of colors that is to be dreamed about for months. The old boys get as much fun out of the day as the young ones. On every other holiday people like to make visits or tp go to shows, but on the Fourth of July every one wants to stay at home,- the young people to carry out their celebration, and the older people, as they pretend. to help the children celebrate. It is pretense merely. For the more Fourths one has celebrated the’ more fun he can get from the next. There is no boy that has as much money to spend on the Fourth as he would like to have. His imagination is not large

enough to picture the amount of money which.he thinks he could spend to advantage on this day. How to njaka a little money go a long way wrinkles the foreheads of the youths and troubles their sleep with dreams of complicated mathematical problems. If the hoard of cash is small no bright little chap needs any advice as to the ways of disposing of it. He will prim up his home with all the flags he can find and invest his money in firecrackers.