Boom!
Laura was jerked out of sleep. The bedroom was dark. Carrie asked in a thin, scared whisper, “What was that?”
“Don’t be scared,” Laura answered. They listened. The window was hardly gray in the dark, but Laura could feel that the middle of the night was past.
BOOM! The air seemed to shake.
“Great guns!” Pa exclaimed sleepily.
“Why? Why?” Grace demanded. “Pa, Ma, why?”
Carrie asked, “Who is it? What are they shooting?”
“What time is it?” Ma wanted to know.
Through the partition Pa answered, “It’s Fourth of July, Carrie.” The air shook again. BOOM!
It was not great guns. It was gunpowder exploded under the blacksmith’s anvil, in town. The noise was like the noise of battles that Americans fought for independence. Fourth of July was the day when the first Americans declared that all men are born free and equal. BOOM!