As the procession saw the
festive arrangements on the piazza, and the crowd of boys, who
cheered them loudly, it stopped to salute the house with some
especial strains of greeting.
Poor Mrs. Peterkin! They were directly under her windows! In a
few moments of quiet, during the boys' absence from the house on
their visit to the swamp, she had been trying to find out whether
she had a sick-headache, or whether it was all the noise, and she
was just deciding it was the sick headache, but was falling into a
light slumber, when the fresh noise outside began.
There were the imitations of the crowing of cocks, and braying of
donkeys, and the sound of horns, encored and increased by the
cheers of the boys. Then began the torpedoes, and the Antiques
and Horribles had Chinese crackers also.
And, in despair of sleep, the family came down to breakfast.
Mrs. Peterkin had always been much afraid of fire-works, and had
never allowed the boys to bring gunpowder into the house. She
was even afraid of torpedoes; they looked so much like
sugar-plums she was sure some the children would swallow them,
and explode before anybody knew it.
She was very timid about other things. She was not sure even
about pea-nuts.
Everybody exclaimed over this: "Surely there was no danger in
pea-nuts!" But Mrs. Peterkin declared she had been very much
alarmed at the Centennial Exhibition, and in the crowded corners
of the streets in Boston, at the pea-nut stands, where they had
machines to roast the pea-nuts.
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