s. 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. She did not think it was safe. They might go off any time, in
the midst of a crowd of people, too!

Mr. Peterkin thought there actually was no danger, and he should be
sorry to give up the pea-nut. He thought it an American institution,
something really belonging to the Fourth of July. He even confessed to
a quiet pleasure in crushing the empty shells with his feet on the
sidewalks as he went along the streets.

Agamemnon thought it a simple joy.

In consideration, however, of the fact that they had had no real
celebration of the Fourth the last year, Mrs. Peterkin had consented
to give over the day, this year, to the amusement of the family as
a Centennial celebration. She would prepare herself for a terrible
noise,--only she did not want any gunpowder brought into the house.

The little boys had begun by firing some torpedoes a few days
beforehand, that their mother might be used to the sound, and had
selected their horns some weeks before.

Solomon John had been very busy in inventing some fireworks. As Mrs.
Peterkin objected to the use of gunpowder, he found out from the
dictionary what the different parts of gunpowder are,--saltpetre,
charcoal, and sulphur. Charcoal, he discovered, they had in the
wood-house; saltpetre they would find in the cellar, in the beef barrel;
and sulphur they could buy at the apothecary's. He explained to his
mother that these materials had never yet exploded in the house, and she
was quieted.

Agamemnon, meanwhile, remembered a recipe he had read somewhere for
making a "fulminating paste" of iron-filings and powder of brimstone. He
had written it down on a piece of paper in his pocket-book. But the
iron filings must be finely powdered. This they began upon a day or two
before, and the very afternoon before laid out some of the paste on the
piazza.

Pin-wheels and rockets were contributed by Mr. Peterkin for the evening.

According to a programme drawn up by Agamemnon and Solomon John, the
reading of the Declaration of Independence was to take place in the
morning, on the piazza, under the flags.

The Bromwicks brought over their flag to hang over the door