“You may live to have that pleasure,” said Mrs. Leslie, “if you let the boys have more of a right in you than I have.”
Johnny caught his mother in a “bear hug.” “I never thought of it that way,” he said. “No ma’am! You’ve the very first, best right and title to me, Mrs. Mother, and the boys may go bang—oh, there I go again! I mean the boys may—what shall I say?”
“You might say that the boys may exercise their inalienable rights over somebody else,” said his mother, laughing and kissing him. “But now I’ll tell you what we will do—I really don’t think it would look well for a Fourth-of-July orator to read his oration out of an United States History, so when papa comes home, I will ask him to have the Declaration of Independence printed on two or three sheets of paper for you, and we’ll tie them together with a handsome bow of blue ribbon, and meanwhile, if you’ve no objection, you will practise in the barn.”
“Of course I will, you loveliest woman alive!” said Johnny, rapturously, “and I shall try not to have my rights treading on anybody else’s rights’ toes!” with which extraordinary declaration, he pranced off to the barn, closely followed by Tiny and Veronica.
There was to be a picnic on the Fourth-of-July. Mr. and Mrs. Leslie and three or four neighbor families had agreed to take their dinners in baskets and butter-kettles, to a very pretty grove which grew obligingly near to the little village-city where they lived, and where Mr. Leslie edited the one newspaper of the place, which fact enabled him to have the Declaration conveniently printed for Johnny, who had been chosen by the boys for the orator of the day, because he stood highest in his reading and declamation classes. It wanted three or four days, yet, of the “glorious Fourth,” and Johnny was diligently practising his voice, for he was afraid, notwithstanding his mother’s earnest assurances to the contrary, that it was not loud enough for an open air oration!
Johnny was a very sociable and friendly little boy, and he had recently made acquaintance with a boy somewhat older than himself, whose profession was bootblacking. This boy had a cool, knowing, and business-like air, which had greatly taken Johnny’s fancy, and it occurred to him that a partnership with Jim Brady might be a very good thing. Jim had happened to mention that he owned a wheelbarrow, and Johnny owned an apple tree, which had been planted by his father on the day of Johnny’s birth, and which, this season, was full of promising apples. So Johnny resolved, if Jim improved on acquaintance, and showed symptoms of honor and honesty, to propose to him, when the apples should be ripe, to take his wheelbarrow and peddle them “on shares.”